


Freefall

by coalitiongirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Emma, Dark Magic, F/F, Swan-Mills Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-02-16 06:28:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 117,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2259447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark!Emma. With Neal's death, her parents' impending new baby, and the resurfacing of memories she isn't thrilled to have back, Emma begins a descent into darkness that no one wants to see or believe in. Except Regina, who knows better than anyone what despair and power can bring. Even to the savior. Even when Regina has her own battles to fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline is just after Quiet Minds, with the wake that followed and without Zelena’s entrance. She’ll be around, but the plot is diverging there. Neal is dead and Henry doesn’t remember his real life.
> 
> POV will switch as necessary in each ficlet between Emma, Regina, and sometimes Henry.
> 
> Dark!Emma not Evil!Emma! I want to explore how Emma as she is is corrupted by this kind of immense power in her hands (with the best of intentions) without glorifying it or pulling her out of character to do so (hopefully). If something is making you vaguely uncomfortable, it’s probably intentional.
> 
> This fic is also being updated in ficlets [on my Tumblr](http://scullysummers.tumblr.com/tagged/darkemma/), and I'll continue adding more here as soon as I have enough for a new chapter.

**i. observation**

She has Regina backed against the wall in the living room and she’s kissing her for only seconds before Regina begins to reciprocate, hands sliding up to flatten against Emma’s abdomen as Emma continues to tease at her lips, stealing kiss after kiss until she’s breathless and aching with need. Her hands are pressed to the wall on either side of Regina and she dives in again for more, her tongue trailing across the bridge of Regina’s mouth and her lips sparking with their every contact.

_Sparking…_

She pulls back, eyes wide as she remembers herself. “What the fuck was that?”

 

Regina still looks dazed, leaning back where Emma had nearly pushed her into the wall and her hands moving slowly back to touch her lips. “Regina. What the fuck was that?” 

Regina blinks, patented disdain returning to her features. “Don’t ask me,” she says, her lip curling. “You’re the one who tried ravaging my lips like an  _animal_.” Emma discovers at once that the dust at the top of the grand piano is absolutely fascinating. Regina sighs. “It’s your magic. If you use too much too quickly, you’ll find that your baser urges come to the forefront. Every errant thought is suddenly all you can think about, and if you have as terrible impulse control as you seem to, that’s going to pose a problem to those around you. Particularly if they aren’t as tolerant as I’ve been.”

Regina. Tolerant. Okay. Though to be fair, Regina hadn’t had much say in Emma pushing her against a wall and nearly attacking her. She hadn’t seemed all that averse to it, though.

“Like you and killing people?” Emma suggests pertly. Regina is glaring at her like she’s incompetent,  _again_ , and it’s bringing forth unpleasant flashbacks of Madam Mayor and hapless sheriff and that recklessness that had marked her interactions with Regina back then. “Wait, so you’re saying that I have stray thoughts about making out with you? Because I…don’t.” Regina had been dark-eyed and flushed when they’d made magic together, sweat pooling at the notch of her jugular in ways that had had Emma contemplating licking it. Which doesn’t count. It’s just…Regina as a state of mind. “Not at all.”

Regina raises her eyebrows, and dammit, her neck is still invitingly shiny. Emma tilts her head and tries swallowing unobtrusively. “Maybe you just had a lot of ‘baser urges’ to be ravaged by me.”

Regina clears her throat. “Let’s get back to the levitation.” She’s embarrassed, cheeks dark and eyes averted, but she looks troubled, too. As though whatever the hell had just happened had triggered new concerns. “The more practice you have, the more in control of yourself you’ll be. Now. The vase.” 

Emma concentrates. This had been her suggestion after…after Neal. She’d brought Henry back to Granny’s that night and headed to her parents’ and somehow instead, her feet had led her here.  _Teach me magic_ , she’d said, and Regina had stared at her and not quite seen her and said,  _Yes_. And now they’re here, the day after Neal’s wake.

So yeah. They’re both messes. And fucking Zelena is going to pay regardless. Her eyes narrow and she pictures the woman she’d met only briefly in her mind, smug eyes and green brooch and–

 _“Emma_.” She jolts back to reality just as Regina lays a hand on her arm and there’s a shattering noise from above. The vase crashes into the ceiling, showering them both with shards of glass as Regina throws up a shimmering purple shield around them. “This is what happens when you don’t focus,” Regina berates her, frustration mingling with something nearing concern. It recalls Regina over a year ago,  _You can use magic_ , and Emma hadn’t realized until after they’d fought how disheartened Regina had looked. “I can’t teach you if you aren’t going to put in any effort.” 

“Sorry. I was just…” She stares at the glass, settling to the floor around them. “Angry.” 

Regina waves her hand and the vase is made whole again on the coffee table. “You’re the one who didn’t want to give in to your anger in Neverland. What was it you called me? A monster?” She’s prowling again, pacing back and forth in an arc behind Emma, close enough that Emma thinks she can feel Regina’s breath warm against her neck.

“You know I didn’t mean…” She stops, because it would be a lie to say she’d never thought of Regina as a monster. But that had been before, back when curses and even Evil Queens had been an impossibility and Regina was just a vengeful mayor on a power trip. That had been before she’d watched Regina crouched in front of a hospital bed-  _No matter what anyone tells you, I do love you_ \- and before the trigger and Neverland and Pan’s curse. “You’re not a monster,” she says firmly. “Anger doesn’t make you a monster.” 

Anger makes Emma determined, makes her focused, makes her want to protect the people she still has left. Anger is constructive now, and her intent has to matter more than silly old mantras left over from old Star Wars marathons. “Just as long as you don’t break any more vases,” Regina says, sliding her hands into Emma’s like they’d been before all the kissing. That they’re never going to talk about again. “Try lifting it again.” 

Regina centers her, slows the magic so it isn’t pouring out all at once, and it’s not enough anymore. It feels like tripping a step before the finish line, like jolting out of a dream just as it intensifies, like teetering at the precipice of orgasm but it’s  _so slow_ , too little sensation trickling through, and Emma surges forward with impatience. She’s had enough of this strained control when she has so  _much_ within her, when she can’t afford to be cautious with a Wicked Witch on the loose, and she summons up every last bit of power she can feel thrumming through her veins and hurls it at the vase.

The vase explodes, combusts inwards then out at the two of them, and Regina snaps out a curse but it’s getting fuzzy and Emma’s vision turns grey for a moment before her legs collapse beneath her. She topples forward and is caught by arms that nearly fold under her weight. “You  _idiot_ ,” Regina grits out. “Are you this incapable of following simple directions?” She sighs. “Of course you are. I’ve met your parents.”

Emma ignores her. “I can’t move. Why can’t I move.” She struggles to plant her legs back onto the floor but they don’t even twitch. “Regina, why can’t I move?” She can feel rising desperation, a sudden terror of being trapped like this, and she’s sparking again, little flashes bursting through her fuzzy vision. Her chest heaves and her breath is ragged and she chokes until she’s lowered down onto the couch, Regina stroking a calming hand against her cheek.

“You used too much of your magic at once,” comes Regina’s voice, dark irritation half-concealed under a soothing tone. “You’re going to be fine. Just rest it off.” 

“I can’t  _move_!” More magic erupts somewhere around her, wild and uncontrollable, and she would be thrashing around if she could. This feels like a cage, a prison, and her emotions are turned so high that she can’t control them anymore. 

“Stop it!” Regina commands, and something else washes into her, magic like a gentle warning instead of a tidal wave. Her eyesight returns and she blinks into Regina’s face, very, very close, her fingers soft against Emma’s cheeks. “You’re going to set my house on fire at this rate,” the other woman mutters. “Close your eyes. Take a nap. Listen when I tell you what to do next time.” 

She can wiggle her toes now. It’s a start. “Wait. I can’t take a nap,” she remembers suddenly, mentally slapping herself for what had seemed like such a good idea at the time. “I told Ruby to drop Henry off here.” 

Regina’s lips press together. “What?”

“It was going to be a…I thought it’d be nice for you. For him. After Neal.” There are few visible signs that Henry had ever lived here on the ground floor of the house, just a photograph on the mantle that Emma had slid out of sight when she’d first come in. “He likes you and I wanted to thank you for working with me–“

“ _My son is not a bribe_.” Regina spins around, her hands smoothing against her side and curling together in what looks like anger. Then she turns back, eyes frantic, and maybe she isn’t angry at all. “I didn’t prepare a dinner. Or anything for him to eat. What about his old video games? Does he prefer Marvel or DC now?” She paces, heels crunching glass into the floor. Regina nervous is almost endearing when she isn’t being snippy about it. “Do you ever think ahead, Miss Swan? You couldn’t have mentioned this before?” There’s the snippy. Regina wrings her hands. “I’d better go cut up some fresh fruit.” 

She vanishes into the next room and Emma forces herself to relax her body again. This isn’t a prison. Regina is a…well, not friend, exactly, but an ally she can trust to at least not hurt her while she’s helpless. And she’s going to learn to use magic without wearing herself out.

Her eyes drift closed, and the last thing she thinks of before she succumbs to exhaustion is Regina against the wall, kissing her back like this is all they’ll ever need to endure.

She doesn’t quite fall asleep as much as lie in a hazy limbo, vaguely aware of her surroundings and the sounds of Regina cleaning up somewhere nearby. She can feel her energy slowly returning, her headache receding and her thoughts reaching some kind of clarity, and then there’s a low banging from somewhere nearby that Regina doesn’t react to.

A high-pitched bell follows but Regina seems oblivious, and Emma can’t find the urgency to speak until the front door is creaking open and Regina jolts. “There’s some fruit on the bottom shelf of the fridge. Help yourself, but save your appetite for dinner,” she calls.

Henry says, “Uh. Mayor Mills?” 

Emma manages to open one eye. Regina is staring out the doorway, looking chagrined. “Oh, I’m sorry, Henry. I thought you were…” Her voice trails off. “Ruby,” she says unconvincingly. “Ruby comes here a lot.” She steps out of the room into the foyer. “You’re welcome to some fruit, too, of course.” 

“Thanks.” Emma can imagine the smile Henry’s giving Regina, polite and a little bemused, and new pain that has nothing to do with magic and vases shoots through her. “So, are you Ruby’s mom?” 

“What?” Regina sounds horrified. “How old do I look?” 

“Sorry,” Henry says quickly. “You just seemed a lot like a mom there.” 

More silence, and Emma’s half-slumber is all but faded. “No,” Regina says softly, and Emma aches like  _almost, almost, almost_ and regret that she can’t quite feel but hates herself for it. “I’m not a mom.”

They vanish into the kitchen as Regina launches into an explanation of how their work had exhausted Emma, and Emma can just barely hear them talking in low terms. “…just don’t understand how this all connects to my dad,” Henry is saying. “Mom seems to know everyone here, but I know we’ve never been here before. I don’t know what she’s keeping from me.” 

“Mary Margaret is rather popular in town,” Regina acknowledges through what sounds like gritted teeth. “Her friends are your mother’s friends.” It’s not exactly a lie, and then she breaks right into, “How have you been coping with the news about your father?” 

Regina prods and asks careful questions designed for Henry to respond to without asking more, and she doesn’t talk about curses or fairytales but somehow every question he does shoot at her gets a truthful answer. Emma envies her that even as she knows that it’s taken far more than this one conversation for Regina and Henry to get to this.

Still, the irony of this moment, listening to Henry’s misgivings about what Emma’s hiding from him as he confides in Regina, isn’t lost on her. She bites her lip and inhales deeply, stretching arms and legs that are just beginning to move properly, and forces thoughts of frustration from her mind. She has Henry now, has  _always_ had Henry, and Regina has paid the price for her happiness. She’s not so awful to begrudge them their newfound ease.

She  _isn’t_.

“I do like your town,” Henry is saying hastily when he and Regina return from the kitchen. “It’s…homey. Like a big family. I don’t even know the people in the apartment opposite ours in New York, and here I feel like I’ve already met everyone.”

“We don’t get many visitors,” Regina murmurs. “There’s a lot of excitement over new arrivals.” She brushes past Emma. “Why don’t you make yourself at home? I’ll go see if I can find something for you to read.” Emma waits until Regina vanishes up the steps before she peeks out at Henry.

She’d thought he’d sit on the couch opposite her, but instead he’s seated on the bench in front of the grand piano, eyebrows knit as he raises the fallboard and his fingers settle on the keys. They move as though from memory, and soon a tentative melody is emerging from the other side of the room. 

Footsteps sound on the stairs, this time hurriedly descending, and now Emma’s eyes are wide open as Regina leans against the doorpost, head tilted and eyes speaking a language Henry can’t possibly understand. She doesn’t seem to notice Emma, struggling to sit up and falling back down. Neither of them do. “You play beautifully.” 

“I don’t,” Henry says, his fingers still tracing out forgotten music. “I mean, I’ve never played before. We never had a piano.” He pulls his hands back. “I don’t know how I know this.” 

“Perhaps it’s an old muscle memory you’ve forgotten learning,” Regina suggests, entirely truthful. She smiles, so pained that Emma twitches again with sorrow she has no right to. “Or maybe you’re just a natural.” 

Henry returns to the keyboard, a new song at his fingertips as he shakes his head slowly, and Emma thinks  _join him_ with such fierce desire that she can feel the magic glowing between them as Regina walks forward, blinking with confusion at her own movements. She doesn’t see Emma, brow furrowed as she focuses on giving them this, on forcing Regina to sit beside Henry, and she doesn’t see Emma’s satisfaction when her magic has done something good and done it well.

Regina’s hands dance between Henry’s, drawing out a refrain as Henry plays on haltingly, and the music rises and falls around the room like a thousand tiny sighs.

* * *

**ii. augmentation**

She’d come to Zelena’s house just over a week ago, hunting for signs of Rumple, and she’d run from it with the weight of a realization she’d never dared to contemplate before. But today Emma is walking beside her and she feels…not quite as off-kilter. Safe, almost.

_Damn_.

“Why did you want me here today?” she says, mostly to stave off the warmth that rises through her at that revelation. “Don’t you have a pirate lurking about with nothing better to do than follow you around?” 

Emma shrugs. “I don’t think he’d be much help against Zelena or Gold. And we can do more…” She waves her fingers at a leaf in their path. It floats on, carried by the wind. “Crap. Wait.” She squeezes her eyes shut and focuses. The leaf is instantly pulverized, tiny pieces of dust shooting out at them. “I thought too hard, didn’t I?” 

“I didn’t know you were capable of thinking at all,” Regina says mildly, but she sneaks a sidelong glance at the other woman. Emma’s powers are unpredictable at best, and since she’d returned to Storybrooke, she’s been like a live wire, magic flowing off her in waves that are both wasteful and destructive. It’s the kind of power she’d have once nurtured, grooming Emma to be a weapon as lethal as a magical atomic bomb. 

And where that once might have tempted her, now it concerns her instead. At least Emma is receptive to proper training. She’s kicking another leaf now, stomping down on it with her boot. “Okay,” she admits, “I didn’t want to be around Hook today. Not right after Neal…” She sighs. “He’s kind of aggressively flirting with me. And awkwardly.” She rolls her eyes. “He thinks he’s pretty enough to get away with it.” 

“And you’re the only one not to fall for his charms.” Regina squashes a leaf before Emma can get to it, decisive and sharp. “How romantic.” 

Emma’s lips twist into a grimace. “Shut up. I just lost…a guy. I’m trying to figure that out before I deal with Hook again.” 

“Were you in love with Neal?” It’s more than she cares to know, honestly. Emma Swan’s love life has gotten in her way multiple times in the past and the only part of it that concerns her is the part where Henry goes sailing with a pirate and she only finds out after the fact. 

But Emma’s always been difficult to read around all those men flitting through her orbit, and this is more openness than she’s gotten from her since the curse had broken. “I don’t know. I was angry and hurt.” Emma shrugs and ducks her head. “And then it seemed petty to be mad when I thought he’d died. My parents saw it as some epic love story like theirs. I think I did too until I sat in jail for eleven months over it.” She barks out a laugh as Regina’s eyebrows shoot up. Of course. She’d known that Emma had been pregnant in prison, but she hadn’t pieced together Neal’s history with her and that time. 

“But he was good. He had his reasons, and he was a hero in the end.” Emma says it with conviction a hair too forceful, and another leaf explodes up at them. “I cared about him. Of course I loved him. I was just finally ready to let go, and then he had to go die on me.” She laughs again. “And I’m sure Hook will find some way to piss me off even more about it. It’s enough to make me swear off men altogether.” 

Regina touches Emma’s hand before another leaf can suffer her magic, and it sparks like static electricity that races into her bloodstream, faster and faster until her heart is pounding from the power of it. “Miss Swan, are you propositioning me again?” 

Emma’s hand flies away from hers and she snickers as Emma glares at her. “You’re still a bitch.” 

“Thank you.” She smirks again and doesn’t think about the fact that Emma’s magic is still surging through her like she’s been shot full of adrenaline and it’s a struggle to keep her breaths even. “But at least I’m not a lovesick pirate who doesn’t know when he’s being shot down.” 

“Yeah, yeah, point in your favor.” They reach the far side of the house and Regina lags back for a moment, just long enough for her to hold out a hand and shoot a short blast of diluted magic- nearly lavender in color- toward the woods behind them. Her muscles unclench and her eyes clear and she breathes again, feeling the loss of Emma’s magic like she’s been trapped in a desert and her last canteen yanked away from her.

“Hey.” She blinks and looks ahead of her. Emma’s turned around to frown at her. “You okay? You look kind of flushed.” 

“I was overcome by your sexual advances,” she drawls. “Is this how all the ladies feel around Hook?” 

She expects another flustered insult, but this time Emma’s ready for her. She takes a step back toward Regina, cocky like it’s two years ago and they’re at each other’s throats again, and purrs, “Regina, if I wanted you overcome, you would be.” 

She’s suddenly close enough that her breath is hot against Regina’s skin and Regina’s tongue darts out to lick suddenly dry lips, so taken aback that she can only manage a husky, “You could try,” before Emma smirks and turns again, smug and red on the back of her neck.

Emma clears her throat once. Then twice, and Regina feels as though this might’ve been her victory after all. That sensation of safety she’d felt around Emma before is all but gone, and that isn’t quite as strong a relief as she’d have thought it. “Uh. Anyway. You were here earlier this week, right?” 

“Yes.” She feels the stirrings of panic again, trapped on all sides by too many dangers.

Emma slows so they’re walking together again, and this time she’s regarding Regina with curiosity, as though she can sense Regina’s heart skipping beats and  _too much, all too much_. “What did you see?” 

A bottle of whiskey. An arrow at her head. A lion tattoo. “Nothing important,” she lies, and she brushes against Emma again, feeling vaguely centered just by the soft scrape of leather against wool.

“Okay.” Emma is still watching her and she remembers that Emma insists her vaunted superpower always works on Regina. “Nothing magical? No hints of what you can’t remember?”

It’s a relief to be able to be honest again when Emma’s staring at her like that. “None.” 

“Damn.” Emma wiggles her fingers. “Maybe she’s in there. Think we can take her?” 

“If turning her into powdered intestine will solve anything.” Emma groans and stalks ahead. “Or you might misfire and disintegrate me instead,” Regina calls after her.

Emma slows again, lips twitching. “I’m sure I’d be heartbroken about it.” She pauses. “Hey, you wanna do dinner with Henry and me again?”

“Of course I do,” she says automatically. A moment later, her eyes narrow. Twice in one week. Emma is nothing but solicitous around her lately, but she’s never been that free with Henry when she’s had him to herself. Neither of them have been. They cling to whatever motherhood they can have to call their own, never a unit for as long as they’d been several nights ago in Regina’s home.

What could possibly be motivating Emma to be so generous with a son who doesn’t even remember enough to know he’d want to see her? She stiffens, the pieces coming together in her mind. “You’re leaving.” 

“What?” Emma spins so quickly that she nearly crashes into the side of the house.

“After we finish this. You’re taking Henry back to New York, aren’t you? This is just some consolation prize for me?” She’s caught between fury and despair, knowledge that her son had been at her fingertips again and he’s going to be stolen away.  _Again_. 

Emma squirms and doesn’t look at her. “It’s his home.”

“Storybrooke was his  _actual_ home for eleven years and he did just fine there.” 

“Really?” Emma does turn now, eyes flashing. “You mean when he was kidnapped by a pair of psychopaths? When he hated magic so much he tried to blow it up? When he was poisoned by his  _mother_?” She holds up a hand before Regina can snap back. “I know. I know there’s more now and you’ve worked through that. But he was happy away from all this.” 

“You were happy away from all this,” Regina corrects her, but her stomach is sinking because Emma isn’t wrong. Emma is making decisions that infuriate and offend her, but she isn’t wrong, and that awareness has her nauseous. Has her  _raging_. “You’re running again.” 

“No.”

"That’s par for the course, Emma. You’re dealing with your own issues with…this Neal, and with the pirate, and–“ She plays a hunch, one she’d been silent about until now. Until she’s seething with new fury that she can’t direct anywhere but at herself or Emma. “And with your parents having another child–“ 

A direct hit. Emma’s eyes darken to stormy grey and her fists clench. “You don’t _fucking_  know what you’re talking about.” 

“No?” This is what she’s good at, finding a wound and pressing into it until it turns red and raw. “So you don’t think anything of your parents losing you and promptly getting to work on a new baby? A spoiled little princess who has everything you never did?” 

She doesn’t know how it had been during the missing year, but she remembers the moment she’d seen Snow here, the bitter disbelief that had bubbled up at the sight of her abdomen. Snow remains the spoiled princess herself, driven to claim her own happiness and oblivious to the pain she causes others, and Regina had been forced to remind herself then that Emma hadn’t needed someone she hated angry on her behalf.

Today, though, Emma will be as callous with what she holds precious as she’s ever been, and Regina is fuming just enough to turn her disgust into a weapon, to seek to destroy and hurt as she’s been hurt before.

There’s a blue glow around Emma’s hands, rising and shrinking with every short breath. Regina’s eyes latch onto it with hunger she struggles to tamp down. “You took that away from them. From me.  _You_.” 

She thinks about Henry and tears her eyes from the magic. “They seem to have gotten over it,” she says, and a shock of magic blows from Emma’s hands into her chest, throwing her against the wall. 

It’s the most potent Emma’s magic has ever been, like fine wine to the taste, meant to be savored but submerged in instead. And it’s tempting like magic has always been, pure  _power_ rushing through her veins, nearly tearing them apart with the force of it until she’s dazed and helpless.

And suddenly it feels all too familiar to be restrained by magic like this, to be impotent in someone else’s hands and she stares at Emma and sees only another woman with too much power and too little concern for her. “Please…” she manages in a strained voice. “Please…”  _I’ll be good_ spins through her mind but she doesn’t know if she’s said it when Emma drops her in a heap and rushes to her.

“Fuck. Fucking fuck, I’m sorry. I keep  _doing_ this.” Emma shakes her head, frustrated. She holds out her hand and this time there’s no magic between them when Regina takes it. “Isn’t there some way to make the magic stop?”

“You can’t stop it. It’s a part of you.” She aches all over, suddenly, Emma a more lethal threat than even this mysterious Zelena. “You’re leaking it everywhere now that you’ve started using it, and you have to get it under control before you hurt someone else.” She takes in a shuddery breath and says in grudging apology, “And I’ll have to learn to stop antagonizing you until you learn.”

“Yeah? But what will we talk about then?” But Emma’s hanging her head in a self-deprecating sort of way that Regina dislikes immediately. “You don’t need to walk on eggshells around me. I– I hate that.” She’s uncomfortable again, shifting from foot to foot. “Look, here’s the thing. This place is toxic. For whatever reasons you want to invent…fine. But I can’t be here anymore. And we both know that Henry is better off away from here, too.” 

She doesn’t quite ask for approval but there’s a plea in her voice and Regina can’t respond. She can’t agree even though Henry has  _friends_ in New York and happy memories and a whole life she isn’t a part of. She doesn’t have it within her to be that selfless when it comes to Henry, to a boy she’d rather die than be without (how she’s still alive, one year later, she doesn’t know). She stares blankly and Emma says, quick and apologetic, “I’ll come back with him. Every school break. I swear. He might not remember you, but he’ll make new memories. I wouldn’t keep you two apart again.”

She toys, for a moment, with the wistful contemplation of Emma Swan under a sleeping curse, lying in the cursed hospital while Regina remains victorious, the town still under her thumb and Henry free of custody battles and home with her at last. And feels sick at the thought of it an instant later. “He’s happy there,” she says uncertainly. She wonders how Zelena had cast this curse, if she could walk over the town line unscathed.

“He is.” There is nothing but sincerity on Emma’s face. “And he’s safe.”

“Except all those  _pesky_ flying monkeys,” says an unfamiliar voice, and they both spin around, Emma reaching for her gun and a fireball in Regina’s hand at once. There’s a short little man standing behind them, smirk on his face and eyes glowing a dangerous red. “Hey, Emma.” 

Emma. Emma who’s standing stock-still beside her, eyes wide like she’s been slapped in the face. “Regina, I need you to hold my hand,” she says, voice tight, and Regina takes her hand with her free one, feels the magic whirling through her system like a hurricane. Her breath hitches and she focuses on letting her own magic pass back to Emma. They’re compatible in ways that are astounding and terrifying and all that raw power clings to Regina’s magic and calms with her. 

The man tilts his head. “Sweet. Is this why you wouldn’t marry me?” 

“ _This_  is Walsh?” Regina asks, as Emma grits out, “I wouldn’t marry you because you wound up being one step down the evolutionary ladder.” 

Her hand squeezes Regina’s tighter. “Wait. How do you know Walsh?” 

“Henry told me. He didn’t mention he was working for Zelena.” That would explain why the engagement didn’t work out, though from the sound of it… “You dated a flying monkey?” She laughs, pitched a little too high to be anything other than relief, which is just about being saved  _another_ parent to worry about. Just that. And some vague concern about Emma making romantic decisions without her memories. She’d done it to an entire kingdom in the past and been gleeful about it, but it feels too close to violation now. With Emma.

“I’m actually just a normal guy,” Walsh says, spreading his hands in an  _aw-shucks, what can you do?_ all-American way. Regina hates him at once. “Nothing to be ashamed of.” He leers at Emma and she grips Regina’s hand as tightly as she grips her gun in the other hand.

She looks…off-kilter, shaky in ways that Regina hasn’t seen from her before. Emma is always Action Girl, running into every situation with the kind of idiotic self-assuredness that she gets from her Charming genes, and seeing her like this- vulnerable, off her game- is as worrying as seeing her lose control of her magic. And another piece of the puzzle that is Emma Swan’s lack of restraint right now in the first place. “What the hell does Zelena want from us?” Emma demands. “What happened last year?” 

“Oh, lover,  _plenty_ happened last year.” He leers again, baring his teeth in an almost monkey-like grin. “You know, I thought I’d failed by letting you make it back here, but as it turns out, it’s been a welcome treat.” 

“As it turns out, seared monkey is stringy but edible,” Regina says conversationally, hurling her fireball at the man. 

Walsh spins and dodges, his movements still oddly simian. “It’s a treat because it means that  _your_ son is in town for Zelena,” he snarls at Regina, and both women move as one, their magic exploding from their joined hands with more force than even Emma’s blow from before. 

Regina can feel the magic singing in her veins, power seeping from every pore of her body, and it feels like being backed against the wall and kissed by Emma Swan again but  _more_. Dangerous and exultant and like toppling over a peak and feeling wave after wave of release with every surge of energy that passes from them. She can hear Emma panting beside her, both of them suddenly sweat-drenched with sheer exertion, and this is every temptation she’s sworn to never surrender to again, locked in the unpredictable raw power that is Emma Swan. 

There’s a responding burst of magic- tiny, compared to theirs, but just enough to run- and Walsh puffs out of existence again. And it takes long moments before Regina remembers-  _Henry!-_ and she yanks her hand away as quickly as she can and is left wobbly and bereft. 

Emma slides to the ground, too spent to move again, and she barely gasps out, “We need to…” before Regina is pulling out her phone and dialing Snow’s number. 

She speaks curtly and hangs up without a goodbye. “He’s fine. No sign of Zelena. But we’re not going anywhere without him again.” 

“Damn straight.” Emma leans back against the wall, sleepy-eyed with the unsteadiness from facing Walsh gone. “So that was some magic, huh?” 

 _Some magic._ Potent, overwhelming, and driven solely by their fury. It’s everything Regina’s spent the past year and a half struggling to overcome, and it’s what Emma has in spades. “Some magic,” she agrees softly, and thinks instead of dinner with her son.


	2. Chapter 2

**iii. enervation**

Emma clicks on the most recent email, a favor from an old contact, and frowns at the results.  _H.O. Incorporated._ They’re the name on the lease of Walsh’s furniture shop in New York. And there’s no sign of them online, nothing but vague and vaguer lists of subsidiaries and a stark, graphic-free website. 

“Nothing?” Mary Margaret rubs her eyes from her spot on the couch. She’s been drifting in and out as Emma does her work, her head sinking lower and lower with every submission to sleep. Emma remembers being pregnant with Henry and equally exhausted, curled up on a thin bunk that was the best they had to offer her in a minimum security facility in Phoenix. 

She swallows emotions she isn’t ready for and says instead, “Nothing. What I don’t get is how Zelena managed to afford a lease on the Upper West Side without any funds from this world. What did she do, sell her Munchkins?” 

Mary Margaret shrugs. “Regina managed some magical gymnastics here with nonexistent money, too. The whole town. That giant house.” She bites her lip. “It must seem more like a curse itself now. So big and empty.” 

 

“I guess.” Emma does her best to not think about Regina, all alone again. It blurs her vision and leaves her shaky on things she can’t afford to second-guess, plans that are about  _her_ and  _Henry_ and can’t be about Regina because Regina makes everything too complicated. “Since when are you so worried about Regina, anyway?”

“Emma.” There are times when she does feel like a child around Mary Margaret- a phenomenon not limited to their post-curse lives- and the other woman is smiling at her like she knows something Emma doesn’t. Emma bristles and then forces herself to relax. “I thought you two were getting along.” 

“We are.” She thinks more about Regina’s lips now than she does…pretty much anything, actually, but that’s more than Snow White ever needs to know. And it’s not like that’s relevant to  _anything._ Ugh. “I didn’t know you two were so close now.” 

“It’s…complicated. It’s always complicated with Regina,” Mary Margaret says, and Emma bobs her head in fervent agreement. “But she’s been trying for so long. She saved us from Pan’s curse, she saved the day when we were in Neverland, she was willing to die to save us all from the trigger…she’s changed.” 

Something hot and slick slides down her throat, burning up her abdomen. “Maybe you can start calling her the savior. Give me a break.” She laughs and Mary Margaret’s brow furrows.

“Emma, you’re the one we need most of all. You’re–“

“I’m the one who keeps Regina alive long enough to save everyone,” she cuts in, grinning so hard her cheeks hurt. “We’ve got a good thing going here.” Truthfully, it’s a relief to hear Regina’s accomplishments spelled out like that, to dismiss herself as the secondary hero of the story to Regina’s antihero. She keeps their powerhouse witch under control and makes sure no one kills her- or she doesn’t kill anyone- and now that Regina’s milder, at peace with Mary Margaret and the town, she isn’t needed here.

Daughter. Savior. There are no titles that can’t be ascribed to someone new now. None but  _Mother_ , for as long as Henry doesn’t remember how easily she can be replaced there once more. 

Mary Margaret’s forehead is still wrinkled and she’s watching Emma with suddenly penetrating eyes that have Emma slouching back down to stare at her laptop again. “Emma, are you–“

The door opens, cutting off Mary Margaret before she can ask another question Emma can’t answer, and Emma looks up with relief. “Henry!” 

“Hey, Mom. Whatcha looking up?” He plops down next to her to squint at her screen and she shuts the search page immediately.

“Nothing to worry about. Just this case.” She slides her arm around his shoulder, and he feels real and tangible and  _still hers_. “Mary Margaret made cookies.” 

He’s up an instant later, pulling away from her to run to the kitchen area. “Awesome.”

She shuts her laptop, stretching as she stands. “Thanks for taking him out, Killian.” 

Hook is still lurking by the door, as he does, glancing back at her every few moments. Her skin prickles with discomfort as she approaches him. “Any problems?” 

He shakes his head. “We stayed within crowded areas, as you instructed. No sign of Zelena or your former fiance.” His eyes glimmer with something between mockery and hurt as though he has right to either of those things, and she looks away and wraps her arms around herself. “Here.” When she turns back, he’s holding out her phone. “I called Regina every twenty minutes to check in. Also as instructed.” He’s definitely rolling his eyes now, no amusement in them. “I missed one call and she arrived on the street one minute later to berate me.” 

She’s amused. A little sorry she’d missed it. “Sounds like Regina.”

“Swan.” He leans forward. She doesn’t back up, doesn’t ever back up when it comes to Hook and his advances. They had been flattering at first, maybe even fun, and then he’d decided that he was in love with her and now she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do about it. And he makes it so difficult to ignore. “Why am I taking your son out for pizza when there’s a Wicked Witch on the loose?”

She manages to avoid anyway. “I can’t send him to Regina every day or he’ll get suspicious. And she’s one of the only people in this town who still bothers to do her job.” 

“You could send him out with one of the dwarves. We make a good team, Emma.” He looks so earnest she wants to run out of the room and never come back. “And you were only…here all day. Working on your…” He waves his hand vaguely at her laptop. “We have a Witch to hunt down. It’s time we did what we do best.” 

“I’m following a paper trail.  _That’s_ what I do best,” she says irritably. He stares blankly at her and she sighs. “Never mind. Listen, I have to go find the Merry Men tonight and ask them to keep an eye on Zelena’s house.” Because now the Merry Men exist too and are lurking in the woods of Storybrooke. Jesus, how had this become her life? “You met them during that debacle at the hospital, right? You can come along if you want.” 

He brightens almost immediately, lips curling into a smirk. “If you wanted to take a stroll in the moonlight with me, love, you only had to ask.” 

She purses her lips and calls, “Henry!” He looks up, mouth full of cookies. “I’m going to run out for a bit with Killian. You do dinner with Mary Margaret, okay?” 

She expects him to shrug and agree, to bury himself in the video game he’d left on the counter earlier, but instead he frowns and says, “You’re going out now?” 

She smiles, apologetic. “It’s just a quick thing. Some people who might be able to help us.” 

“I’ve barely seen you all day.” He’s never been clingy, exactly, but they’d been like best friends for as long as she can remember (even if so much of it is a lie that trails behind her now every day, a dream that  _could have been reality_ and now it all seems so possible, twelve years too late) and she can see the uncertainty on his face now at the thought of being foisted on someone else again.

She feels burdened, suddenly, claustrophobic at a dozen needs from a dozen different people all at once, and she only offers him a quick “Be back soon,” before she hurries out of the apartment, skipping stairs in her haste to run from the room. 

Hook trails behind her, another tether she doesn’t dare break free of, and she feels stifled even in the cool night air. “You all right, Swan?” 

“I’m fine.” She isn’t fine. She can feel the now-familiar thrumming of magic under her skin, setting her even further on edge than she’d been before. It usually only emerges when she’s actively trying to do magic, but since she’d found out that Henry is one of Zelena’s targets, it’s felt closer and closer to the surface each time she’s stressed and frustrated and thinking of him.

Sometimes she wonders how her mother had survived this long with a younger Regina who hadn’t had her magic under control.

“Let’s just get out of here. You know where the Merry Men are camping?” 

Hook leads the way and she follows, silent and practically exuding standoffishness that he ignores. “Henry’s a good lad. He understands that your work needs to come first now.” 

She glares at his back. “Really? Because, you know, it never did before. I had solid priorities and I never had to worry about him being caught in the crossfire.” 

“You’re protecting more than just the boy now. You have this whole town depending on you.” Hook walks on, confident in her ability to put Storybrooke first. Just like everyone else in this damn town. “Someday he’ll get his memories back and understand that.” 

She feels the flash of fear at that like a physical thing and when she glances down, her hands are glowing blue-white in response, the magic rising and falling threateningly against the tips of her fingers. “You have more family now, more responsibilities,” Hook continues, and the magic is screaming like static in her ears, threatening to let go, and she can’t hear anything else he says. 

It’d be so easy to let it lance out and hit a tree just past Hook, to stun him into silence and end this conversation right now. No harm done, no consequence beyond what might amount to a lecture from a pirate who’s done far worse than that.

 _No._ She shakes her head at her own brashness.  _Impulse control_ , a voice in her head that sounds enough like Regina to make her squirm reminds her. She thinks about the last time she’d exploded, Regina against a wall impossibly tamed and pleading, and she wants to vomit.

The magic fades with her nausea and Hook says suddenly, “We’re here.” 

“Thank god.” She darts forward, taking in the camp of little cabins- curse-created, because she’s never seen them before- and a little boy standing at the edge of the camp with a man, both of them skipping stones across the lake under the toll bridge. “I’m looking for Robin Hood.” 

“Ah, then you’ve found him.” The man straightens and turns to her. “What can I do for you?”

“You’ve heard about the Wicked Witch?” 

“Certainly. I searched her house just last week.” 

Huh. “Find anything?”

“Not as such, no.” 

He looks contemplative, a little perplexed, and Emma rubs the bridge of her nose and says, “Would you mind keeping some of your people out there as often as possible? Don’t go inside, just…stake out the place and see if anything out of the ordinary happens.” 

“Not at all.” He smiles genially and she manages a smile and a brief thanks back before she turns away, ready to return to Henry again, and he calls behind her, “The queen. Regina.” 

She turns back, wary at once. “What about her?” 

“She is working with you, yes?” He still looks as though he’s confused by something and she doesn’t know why she’s suddenly on guard and annoyed by him, but somehow she is. “We met at the witch’s house when I was there and she was…odd.” 

Regina hadn’t mentioned any other visitors, and Emma grits her teeth, irritated with her own displeasure at that information. Clearly it hadn’t been important, just like this man who’s now smiling bemusedly as though he’s found Regina worthy of intrigue, as though Regina would  _ever_ work with some stranger of her own volition. Regina doesn’t pick up strange men to be her allies, and there’s a building headache in just contemplating it.

Her magic surges and she sees it sparking, emerging again from a totally inane conversation that doesn’t matter, and she stares at it in horror. She feels off-balance, out of control, and Hook is saying her name and Robin Hood is speaking again and she doesn’t dare focus on them, doesn’t think about the proprietary emotions that are singing through her in a crashing crescendo, and everything is so  _loud_.

She spins around and runs from the forest, runs until she’s short of breath and her magic is trailing lines of blue that sizzle with energy behind her and she’s still running when she passes her old apartment- in no state to see Henry, not now, not like this with a thousand voices still in her head- and before she knows it, she’s standing in front of 108 Mifflin Street with her fist against the door and the magic faded again.

Regina opens the door, eyes narrowed with concern. “Is Henry all right?” 

“He’s fine. I just…” She flushes, not entirely sure why she’s there at all. “I just needed the quiet.” She slumps on Regina’s doorstep and there’s no tether there, no demands beyond nagging guilt that isn’t coming from Regina’s eyes. There’s no need to be _more_ , no more people depending on her with expectations she struggles and fails to fulfill, and Regina steps aside silently and lets her come in.

The house is as silent as Mary Margaret had worried, an odd stillness there that lends to an eerie aura around the place. It had never felt quite this abandoned back when Henry had lived here, even when he hadn’t been home, and it hadn’t even felt this empty days ago when she’d been learning magic from Regina.

And Regina- at home, in the silence, with no one but her thoughts to keep her company- Regina is so alone. Emma remembers alone in the memories that remain as her false ones fade, remembers sitting in an empty apartment with a birthday cupcake and exhaustion at her past and future. She hadn’t wanted to be alone, and she hadn’t been since that night. “I’m sorry,” she says, looking around. “You’re…you’re all alone here.” 

“Yes, well.” Regina clears her throat, turning her head to look at the foyer table so Emma can’t see her face. “That didn’t bother you when you took my son away from me the first time on trumped-up charges.” 

She hears the  _the first time_ and winces. “Yeah, but you had your homicidal mom to keep you company then.” It’s light and playful and Regina just gives her a  _look_ in response, but old shame returns as quickly as it had first come back when Archie had been standing behind the door of her apartment, alive and well. She reddens again. “Maybe you should…Mary Margaret’s been moping about you being on your own. You should come over more.” 

“You mean once you’ve taken Henry to New York again.” Regina’s voice is still cordial, but there’s a dangerous edge to it. “There was a time when I would have spent every wish in the universe to be alone rather than living with Snow White.” 

Emma fidgets on her feet, her boots curling in and out on the spotless floor under them.

Regina sighs. “But I suppose someone should keep an eye on her. She is Henry’s grandmother, after all, and she needs someone to make sure she doesn’t invite Cruella De Vil in to be her baby’s nanny.”

“Cute.” Emma relaxes, making her way to the couch in the living room. “At least this baby will have someone to look after them. Even if Pongo might have to make a run for it.”

“Self-pity doesn’t suit you, Emma.” But Regina is sitting down opposite her, legs tucked under her on the couch and feet bare. She’s wearing dark yoga pants and a satin pajama shirt, more casual than Emma’s ever seen her, face scrubbed clean of makeup and a book open on the couch beside her. Emma can’t look away.

“How did you get your magic under control?” she asks, and it’s partly out of curiosity, partly an excuse to keep staring. Regina without her makeup and clothing is a vulnerable Regina, without the armor that wards off the world. She can imagine this Regina being a mom, curled up beside Henry on the couch doing homework and reading him fairytales.

Or. Not fairytales.

“When I started out?” Regina hums in thoughtful recollection. “I wasn’t learning because I was angry. I  _was_ angry, but I was helpless more than that, and magic was a way for me to find strength in my powerlessness.” She leans back, and there’s something about these clothes that seem to relax her, open her up more than ever before. Emma is mesmerized. “I wasn’t very good at it at first because of that. Then Rumple found ways to motivate me, to make me angry and hurt and empty but for that, and I gained power after I already had control.” She quirks an eyebrow. “I may have been evil, but I didn’t make mistakes with my magic.”

“And you’re saying that I’m too angry.” She isn’t angry. She’s…frustrated, confused, coping with more stressors than she ever has before. This town is the last place she wants to be right now and she feels both burdened and selfish and  _that_ makes her angry, angry with herself and Zelena and this situation, over and over again.

“I think now is the optimal time for your magic to come forth because you  _are_ angry. But it’s a double-edged sword.” Regina is silent again, smoothing down wrinkles in her shirt. “And it’s dangerous because you’re acting out of vengeance and resentment.” 

She jerks, defensive. “You’re one to talk.” 

“Do you really want to be like me?” Regina says blandly, and Emma falls silent, catches Regina’s gaze and sees self-loathing and longing and pain swimming in fathomless depths of dark gold. “That’s what I thought.”

“Regina…” she starts, and has no idea how she’s going to finish the sentence. Because there’s so much history, years of baggage and darkness and more between them than this moment. And all she wants to do in this moment is pretend none of it exists, to watch soft lips curve into a smile and to hide away in the safety of a world where that’s all this is. To grant Regina reassurance she has no business granting and Regina has no business receiving, all for the smile on her face.

She stands up instead, sharp and abrupt and mildly horrified at her own desires, and Regina follows her to her feet. “Emma?” 

“I should go,” she says, and her whole body buzzes with magic that feels like fury and regret and cowardice, and then she’s running from thoughts of Regina for the second time that night, her skin electrified with blue fire with every step she takes.

* * *

 

**iv. vibration**

Henry misses school. Which is a feat in itself, since Mom has had to yank him out of bed by the ankles four times out of five most weeks, and even that’s when he’s  _good_ at it and has friends who aren’t total jerks this year. But then you spend five days a week with assorted strangers of varying levels of dullness while your mom hunts down some shadowy criminal cabal and you start to miss the monotony of math class.

It’s not that he isn’t used to Mom being out all day and distracted all night, but it’s never gone on this often and it’s never felt more like he’s an afterthought, handed off to Mom’s friends as often as possible as she grows more and more irritable. Twelve years of happy memories are suddenly straining at the seams, and  _no one_  will tell him _anything_.

Today they’re at the mayor’s house, at least, which is the only place in this town where he doesn’t feel so easily forgotten. Mom’s there with him more often than not and they’ve been doing dinner together most nights, lately, the three of them almost like a…

He shakes his head and forces that thought out of his mind. If Mom ever figures that one out, she’d go running from this town, too, and they’d probably wind up halfway across the country this time. Mayor Mills doesn’t deserve that. 

Mayor Mills smiles at him with shadows in her eyes but there’s never the sensation with her that he’s a burden or a necessity Mom comes with. This is a town that talks and talks and talks- every moment, every small-town story theirs to give away freely- but Mayor Mills listens to him and encourages him to tell her everything while offering little in return. She does the same for Mom, and Henry watches as the lines that have appeared on Mom’s face since they got here fade, moment by moment, with every evening they spend with the mayor.

It’s reassuring and it’s frustrating at the same time, because she’s the only one to give him that now but at the same time, he’s very aware that he knows almost nothing about her. And Henry thrives off listening, piecing together puzzles that make no sense to understand the stories people aren’t telling him. Mayor Mills is a mystery who watches him with soft eyes and tackles the vocabulary list Jesse had emailed him yesterday and doesn’t think twice about spending her afternoons with a twelve-year-old boy she’s only just met. 

He likes Killian and Ruby is really pretty and cool, but there’s something about Mayor Mills that makes him feel like he can tell her anything. About Walsh, about his mom, even about the dad he’d never met.

“I didn’t know him well,” she says apologetically when he’s in the kitchen, cutting up oranges for a fruit salad she’s preparing. Mom is banging around upstairs, searching for some book that she’d asked Mayor Mills about. She hadn’t named it, but apparently “the book” had been enough for the mayor. There’s a particularly loud bump from somewhere above them and they both wince. “I was rather occupied when he came to town. I lost my mother shortly after.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and her eyes turn shiny and startled at the same time, as though no one’s ever told her that before. “Was she very sick?” 

The mayor laughs, just a short breath that comes out faster than the others. “Not in the usual ways. It was a shock to everyone, I think.” 

And because Henry listens, hears new cadences in the way she says that, he feels sick with a dread he can’t name. “My mom says that this is the kind of sleepy town where serial killers hide out.” It’s why he’s been assigned to babysitters here when he’d never had them at home, why Mom looks at him with relief every time he’s returned to her. He’d thought it was a crock until she’d told him about his dad.

He suddenly remembers that he’s talking to the mayor of said town, and he stumbles over an apology. “I mean– it’s a nice town! Peaceful. Serial killers like nice towns. You’d never suspect they lived in them.”

But the mayor is laughing, eyes sparkling with new amusement and a hint of the same concern that Mom shares. “I’ll take it as a compliment, Henry. Either way, it’s a good idea not to run around along here right now. We still don’t know much about the person who killed your father.” She’s silent, brooding for a moment, and when she speaks next it’s almost reluctantly. “For all his history with your mother, I think he genuinely did care about you once he knew you were out there.”

“He didn’t even know me.” Mom gets emotional when he says that, stares at him with wet eyes that aren’t like her at all, and he squirms and isn’t quite sure why he’s supposed to suddenly agree that the guy who abandoned his mom in prison is a hero now.

“He wanted to.” Mayor Mills dices apples with expertise and tosses them into the bowl. “That much I knew about him.” She cuts off a wedge of apple and bites into it. “I don’t see much use in rewriting the stories of the dead to suit us, but I do know that your father was running from someone very dark for a long time, and I…” She swallows. “I understand that desire, at least.”

“Oh.” He tries to think about it, imagine having to run his whole life and leave behind people he cares about, and it feels like another story he hasn’t been given. He drops the oranges into the bowl and watches her mix the fruit, gathering it up and dropping it until it’s all evenly distributed. “Do you think it was okay that he ran all the time?” 

“No.” She smiles at him, gaze warm with a hint of challenging stubbornness lurking at the edges. “I don’t run.” 

“Is that a dig at me?” Mom appears in the doorway of the kitchen, suspicious eyes on both of them. “I don’t like it when you two team up on me.” 

“Shouldn’t make it so easy, Miss Swan,” Mayor Mills drawls out, crossing the room to pass the bowl into her arms. They bump against each other and Mom nearly jumps out of her skin. “Any sign of that book?” 

“Nope.” Mom is still a bit flushed.  _So lame_. “It’ll turn up when it wants to be found, I guess.” She glances at Henry for a moment and he raises his eyebrows in response, vaguely irritated at more secrets. “Dinnertime?” 

They set the table together while the mayor finishes up in the kitchen, and soon they’re all seated in the dining room, talking about some disaster he’d missed today while he’d been at the diner with Ruby and her granny. “David thought it was some kind of…uh, bear, and he started firing tranq darts into the bush and then next thing we knew, Dr. Whale was passed out in the middle of the woods.” Mom shakes her head. “Apparently he goes out there to experiment on…something about monkeys. I don’t know. Why did you make this guy town doctor?” 

Mayor Mills rolls her eyes. “I had no say in the matter. Nor do I have any recollection of appointing David Nolan as sheriff, for that matter. I would take a replacement in an instant.” She purses her lips and Mom licks hers. “Not that our last sheriff was much of an improvement.” 

“Hey, I’ve heard great things about your last sheriff!” Mom protests, and she’s smirking like she knows exactly how the mayor’s going to respond. “She definitely saved your ass a couple of times.” 

Mayor Mills scowls. “You’re new here. You must have missed the time she broke into my office to search for evidence against me. Or the time she tried to arrest me for a murder I didn’t commit.” Henry’s eyebrows shoot up. Maybe he has underestimated Storybrooke, quiet little town where nothing happens.

“Sounds like she kept you on your toes. Like a good sheriff.” Mom is teasing, eyes bright like they always are around Mayor Mills. She’s alert when she’s with her, watching her for reactions with a kind of solicitous complacency, and Henry doesn’t remember seeing Mom like this before. Even with Walsh, she’d always been guarded, laughing and happy but never quite so aware of everything he’d done. It’s how he’d imagine Mom around a mark. Except different. Mom doesn’t  _flirt_ with her marks.

He shakes his head, pulling his phone out of his pocket as it vibrates and glancing down at the message as Mom says, “I’m sure she had good reasons. But she might’ve been a bit of an idiot some of the time.” 

He looks up to see Mayor Mills’s eyes shining at Mom like they’d been at him earlier, and she has to make a visible effort to tear them away. “Henry,” she says suddenly. “Have you gotten any new schoolwork recently?”

The mayor asks about his homework more than Mom does. “Uh, just a creative writing assignment. But it’s free writing, so I can do whatever I want.” 

“Anything in mind?”

He shrugs. He’s thought about writing about his dad, about trying to imagine why he’d leave Mom behind. He’s thought about writing about this town and secrets and what might be hidden under the surface- dozens of Stepford robots who look like Mary Margaret, maybe, or alien visitors who pretend to look human. “I haven’t picked yet.” 

“His last piece was amazing,” Mom puts in, and he flushes. “He rewrote some of his favorite movies from the perspective of the villain, really explored their motivations and everything.” 

Mayor Mills blinks. “Really. Was this a…recent assignment?” 

“Couple of months ago.” He shrugs, adding modestly, “My teacher thought it was my best essay yet but I thought I could have done more.” 

“Oh.” The mayor twists her fork in her food, eyes still on Henry. “I’d think you’d be more interested in the heroes.” 

He scoffs. “Most of them are really cool and powerful, but they’re not  _interesting_. I know why they do what they do.”

“I was never much for heroes,” Mom murmurs, and her face is doing something weird, like she’s caught between regret and pride and she can’t stop watching Mayor Mills. “Spending your life as the designated outcast with no secret destiny does that to you. I guess I gave that to Henry.”

And Mayor Mills’s eyes are almost tender, almost sorrowful, and there’s so much in them that Henry doesn’t know what he’s looking at anymore except it’s… _more_ , somehow. It’s not like Mary Margaret and David or Killian (who he’s pretty sure has a thing for his mom) and their obvious affection, it’s not even like Walsh and his easy grin around Mom. And he suddenly wonders about the big, empty house, about the mayor who has so many dishes and chairs and no visitors for dinner but two New Yorkers who’ve just barely come to town.

He wonders if they’re the mayor’s lifeline because she looks at them both like they’re all she has, and he doesn’t know what’s going to happen after they go. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to  _Mom_ when they go, because now she’s red and she’s caught Mayor Mills’s gaze and they’re both just staring, soft-eyed and tentative, and Henry scrunches up his nose because  _gross_ , he doesn’t need to see his mom like this.

He presses his fingers against the phone in his pocket again and says, “It’s not like I think that Lex Luthor is doing the right thing, but it’s fun to try to understand why he chose to do what he did.” 

Mayor Mills tears her eyes away from Mom to smile at him with that same tenderness. “Maybe the Wicked Witch of the West just misses her sister.” 

“Exactly! Dorothy killed her and took her shoes. We’re just supposed to root for Dorothy to beat her, too, but as bad as she was, there must have been a  _reason_ for it.” He’d gone to see Wicked on Broadway with Mom last year and he thinks that might’ve been what had triggered this whole fascination with the villains’ stories. The mayor is leaning forward, eyes intent on him like what he says is  _important_ , and he feels a happy flush spread through him. 

“Not all the villains attack their stepdaughters because they’re prettier than them,” Mom says, smug as she twists her spaghetti around her fork, and Mayor Mills throws her an exasperated look and returns to Henry.

“But how do you know that she isn’t just an evil person who’s done some justifiable things?” 

He shrugs, thoughtful. “I guess you take her out of that place where everyone’s calling her wicked and see what she does next.” Elphaba had just wanted to get away in the end, hadn’t she? “Not all heroes are good and villains are bad. It’s just the name we give them.”

Mayor Mills sits back, satisfied, and Mom rolls her eyes and says, “ _Some_ are, though. Peter Pan might be the bad guy, but that doesn’t mean that–“ 

“What? Peter Pan is the bad guy?” He’s seen every version and he thinks he’d distinctly remember  _that_ plot twist. “Come on, Mom.”

Mom actually looks offended. “Well, maybe he is! Maybe he’s a child snatcher who drags people off to his forest prison.” 

Mayor Mills is laughing silently, eyes shining like Mom’s distress is the most adorable thing she’s ever seen. (Ew, ew, ew. Not that he’s  _that_ bothered by it. But ew.) “And maybe Captain Hook isn’t a lecherous failure of a villain, but the odds are low.”

He laughs despite himself at the look on Mom’s face, like she’s halfway to arguing just for the sake of arguing. It isn’t often lately that she looks anything more than exhausted, and he’s glad to see her so animated, even when it’s just stubbornness around the mayor. “We’ll have to see next time we’re in Neverland,” Mom retorts.

“We’re  _never_ going back to Neverland,” Mayor Mills says darkly, and Henry squints at both of them, unsure if this is some strange adult inside joke he doesn’t understand. Mom is nodding and both women turn to stare at him at the same time, eyes somber and determined.

He waves his fingers in their path. “Uh, guys?” 

Mom recovers first, rolling her eyes with a nervous snicker. “You know, I really don’t get your sense of humor, Regina.” Mayor Mills is still gazing at Henry, and Mom nudges her. “Regina?” 

She twitches and forces a plastic smile. “Yes, of course. It’s clear that Henry gets his intelligence from the other side of the family.” Mom makes a face but her lips are curling into a tiny grin of her own, and she leans back against her chair, comfortable under Mayor Mills’s assault.

 _Adults_. Man, he misses hanging out with kids his age.

But this isn’t totally terrible, even if they have him rolling his eyes more often than not. He wonders for a moment if Mom is putting down roots here like they never have before, making friends and getting cozy with the mayor of the town. She talks about going back and he’s still doing his schoolwork obediently, but he wonders how quickly she’d change her mind once their potential serial killer is arrested and gone from this place.

He brings it up when they’re already driving down the street back to the inn. “I bet you’d be a better sheriff than David,” he says, and Mom jerks against the brake so the car stops short.

“What?” 

“If we stayed here. Mayor Mills said that she wanted a replacement. And you’d be good at it.”

Mom’s brow furrows. “You hate it here.” 

“Well, it isn’t as exciting as any of the cities we’ve lived in, but it’s okay.” He shrugs. “I miss my friends, but it’s not like this would be the first time we moved somewhere new and I had to start over. And you have…” He doesn’t know how to say it without being blunt, so he plunges forward and does it anyway. “You have friends here, Mom. The closest thing you’ve ever had to a good friend is Walsh, and he proposed and you ran here. I don’t want you to be alone.” 

“Oh, Henry.” Her eyes are getting watery and he bites his lip. “I’m never going to be alone when I have you. You’re all I want. Not this town, not the friends I’ve made here, _you_. And I’ll be happier when we’re home again and we can go back to our lives, no more distractions or reminders of–“ She breaks off, then slams on the brakes again, so suddenly that he bounces forward against his seatbelt. 

“Mom!” He unbuckles just as she does, squinting out the windshield at the shadowy figure who’s standing out in the center of the road. 

“Henry.” Mom’s tone is terse, and Henry looks harder, sees a green brooch sparkling, under the figure’s neck, in the streetlights. “Get down, in front of the seat. Don’t get out of the car. Don’t look up.”

“But I–“

“Henry!” Her voice brooks no argument and he can see the fear flashing over her face, enough that he nods hard and drops to the bottom of the seat. The car door slams and he can hear voices outside, another woman with an accented voice taunting his mother. 

He slides around to the back of the Bug so he can crouch behind the seat properly and ease the door open, taking in the scene in front of him. Mom is standing opposite the woman, gun out as she speaks with low warning, and the woman is laughing in response. A hand stretches out to point to the car and Mom fires her weapon, once then again in quick succession, and there’s a green cloud of smoke that appears from nowhere to swallow the bullets.

It’s impossible, and he gapes out at them, his head spinning as he struggles to make sense of it. The other woman must have had some kind of gas weapon- that brooch, maybe?- or he’d missed something vital. Either way, Mom is looking worried and frustrated and he needs to  _help_ , to save her from this woman before she runs out of bullets.

He finds the compartment where Mom hides her backup weapon under the backseat and fishes it out, holding it shakily in his hands, and kicks open the door all the way. “Really, did you think I was just going to lurk about and wait until you’d found me?” the woman is sneering. “You’re as stupid as your mother.” 

He flinches for a moment before he realizes that she’s still talking to Mom.  _Mom_ , who doesn’t have a mother, who never did.  _What is going on here?_

“Stay the fuck away from my family,” Mom says through gritted teeth, and now Henry blinks at her, at the weird blue-white glow that seems to surround her gun. It’s a trick of the light. It has to be. The alternative is too fantastic and suddenly he isn’t sure if he’s dreaming, if this is all a delusion and he’s passed out in the front seat of the Bug on the way home.

“And yet you seem determined to spend so much time with mine,” the woman drawls.

“What the hell are you talking about? What family?” Mom’s distracted and the woman’s hands are filling up with green energy, crackling and dangerous and  _impossible_ like she’s some kind of Sith Lord, and Henry lifts the gun as quietly as he can, holds it steady like he’s seen in the movies, and fires.

 _Click_. It’s unloaded, and he’s an idiot. Both women spin around, the stranger’s lips widening into a smile. “Ah, Henry, isn’t it? How nice of you to join us.” She raises glowing hands–

And Mom’s gun fires again, this time a wild crackling white-blue fire of her own surrounding the bullet and it blows through the green cloud the other woman puts up and hits nothing on the other side. The woman is… _gone,_ like she’d never been there before, and Mom looks scary in that moment- Emperor Palpatine scary, her face lighting up and going dark and her eyes glowing blue, too. She looks furious and dangerous and she waves her hands in front of her, shouting out a curse into the dark, and it’s almost inhuman, not the mom who plays video games with him on the couch and still tries to kiss him goodnight if he doesn’t run. It can’t be Mom. None of this feels real.

He remembers a moment right before they’d left for Storybrooke, Mom turned from the counter-  _Can I ask you something? Do you believe in magic?_ \- and he’d laughed then. He isn’t laughing now, he’s taking careful, stumbling steps away from his mom, and then she turns and sees him and the blue fades from her eyes.

“Henry. Oh, god, Henry.” She runs to him, falls to her knees in front of him as she seizes his hands. “What did you see?” He shakes his head, and everything hurts, nothing makes sense and he can’t have seen any of this. Mom’s hands are clutching his too hard. “No, you can’t know about this. About any of this. We’re going to go home and we’ll be happy, okay? We don’t need this life. I can’t let you…” She looks more terrified than she had when she’d seen the woman, and he feels a chill pass through his body, settling in the pit of his stomach as his head feels like it’s on fire. 

He staggers back for the car door and Mom calls, “Henry? Henry, what are you doing–“ and it all starts feeling fuzzy and he barely sees her as she slides in beside him, pressing a hand to his forehead. And––

_––and––_

He says, “I bet you’d be a better sheriff than David,” but he doesn’t know why he was thinking about that at all. Or why they’re stopped in the street on the way back to the inn. Had Mom parked the car in the middle of the road? 

Mom stares at him. “What?” 

He shrugs it off. The idea feels out-of-place now, like he’d never wanted to bring it up in the first place. “I don’t know. What were we talking about? I think I zoned out there for a minute or two.” 

Mom looks confused. And then realization seems to dawn in her eyes and she lets out a long breath like unexpected relief. “Uh…I don’t know. I guess I did too.” She musses his hair and moves the car back into drive. “Long night.” 

“Yeah.” He sneaks another glance at Mom. She’s staring straight ahead, but her lips are pressed together like the shamed look she gets when she comes home later than she’d promised and her hands are trembling against the steering wheel. 

Something is wrong, something’s been wrong here for a long time, and he’s determined to figure out what it is that has his mother so tense all the time. And he doesn’t think she needs any more pressure. He thinks about her eyes and how light they get around Mayor Mills, and he’s sure of it.

He finally fishes out his phone and types a quick response to his last message.  _Thanks for the offer, but I think we’re okay up here. I’ll let you know if Mom seems like she might need you._ He sends it to Walsh and clicks off the phone, frowning as his foot hits something small and hard on the floor in front of him.


	3. Chapter 3

**v. fabrication**

Fingers slide out to wrap around her arm as she summons her magic and it’s like a surge of strength she’s never known before, cool against her heat and oddly comforting, heightening her every sense until she notices the fingers at last and jerks away. Because she  _has_ known this before, and…

“I won’t be your crutch,” she says warningly, taking a step back so Emma’s at a safe distance. With this much magic within her, she feels alive, on fire, and Emma is dangerous in so many ways when she can’t dull herself to think of consequences. She’s spent far too long training herself to care again to lose it now. “You need to find your own center, not mimic mine.” 

“I’m  _trying_.” Emma’s shoulders drop and she looks suddenly weary, defeated and uncomfortable as she’s been all day. Regina doesn’t know what had brought on this change since yesterday’s peaceful dinner, but she does know better than to ask and try to get a straight answer from Emma. “I don’t mean to keep ruining it.” 

It’s a simple protection spell for Snow’s apartment, put together with a few ingredients and some very specific concentration, and this is the third time it’s shattered mid-spell from Emma’s disruptive thoughts. “What are you thinking about?” she prods finally, struggling to keep the impatience out of her voice.

She fails miserably and earns an annoyed glare from Emma. “What are  _you_ thinking about?”

She colors. “Nothing you need to hear.” Snow, eyes wet with tears as she stares up at her and the curse begins. Emma, snapping out truths about her time in the foster system in Neverland.  _I made a wish…I didn’t want to be alone on my birthday_. And all she’s left with is overwhelming…not regret, it can’t be regret when there’s  _Henry_ , even a Henry who doesn’t remember her…but a sense of  _never again_. Snow will have this baby and Zelena will not take it from her. “You love your family. You don’t want them to be hurt.” 

“Of course not.”

And there’s an easy, if inadvisable, way to keep Emma moving forward. “Think about Zelena sitting with your mother at that table right inside. Think about how close she got to Mary Margaret.” She chooses the name with care, avoids all mention of the baby itself, and watches Emma’s eyebrows settle into a low, dangerous line. “Think about what she could do to her.” 

Emma’s magic explodes from her and Regina barely catches it in time, guides it until they’re wrapping layers and layers of invisible shields around the space of the apartment, building higher in a spiral until it closes in a dome around the loft. It solidifies and doesn’t fall, permanent at last, and only then does Regina turn back to Emma. “It’s done.” 

Emma is twitching as though her magic is still being strained out of her. Or…the opposite, like she’s containing so  _much_ that even that release isn’t enough. Regina reaches for her and Emma croaks, “Don’t.” 

“You’re going to…”

“I’m going to do  _something_ if you touch me and it won’t be good.” She drops to the floor, palms spread out to catch her, and she remains curled into herself as she keeps twitching. There’s no magic this time, nothing but sheer control, and Regina is mildly impressed at Emma’s determination. Say what you may about her lack of willpower sometimes, but Emma is just stubborn enough that there’s hope for her eventual mastery of magic.

And then full minutes pass and Emma’s still on the ground, bent low enough that it recalls Regina’s throne room, and the delight at that wears off and Regina crouches beside her and waits. She can feel the heat emanating from her, see sweat dripping along her neck and falling to her bowed chin, hitting the ground in droplets. Whatever exertion she’s going through is more than Regina’s ever seen with magic, and she’d once had to excise a death curse in a matter of moments.

She’d never wished to be more powerful, not even when she’d seen the vastness of Emma’s potential, and now she’s glad that she isn’t. Her magic fits her like a glove, easy to maneuver and tame into a tool of her own shaping. Emma’s magic is too much, too wild, and it’s only Emma’s supreme control over her own emotions that has kept it small until now. And now that Emma’s run out of coping mechanisms, a dozen traumas hitting her at once with the return of her memories and death and future birth, she’s enslaved by her own power.

Emma finally stops shaking and Regina puts an arm out again. There’s still electricity there, enough to give Regina a shock at contact, but Emma looks up with eyes that glow with victory and Regina can’t repress a responding grin. “I did it!” 

“This time,” she feels obligated to respond, and Emma sags against her arm, quite unexpectedly, and glares up at her until she says grudgingly, “Good job.” 

“I didn’t even collapse this time.” Emma stretches and climbs to her feet, pushing open the apartment door. “That’s it. I’m all done with magic less–“ Her voice trails off. 

Regina follows her inside. “What is it?” She doesn’t see anything different at first. David is on the couch, Snow seated opposite him with her baby book in hand, and both turn around as they enter the apartment.

“Spell all done?” Snow asks. She frowns. “Did you do something to the apartment?” 

And it’s only then that Regina turns and sees what Emma’s still staring at. Or what she _isn’t_ staring at. Somehow, between the time they’d left for the protection spell and the moment they’d returned, the staircase leading up to Emma’s room has vanished completely, as though it had never been there.

This time she doesn’t pull away when Emma reaches for her arm, just focuses with her until the stairs return. She can feel Emma’s emotions roiling beneath the surface, confusion and despair and new defeat and her heart clenches in response. Emma’s eyes flick to hers and there’s a wash of comfort from both of them that reacts to  _that_ as Snow says, puzzled, “Was that part of the protection spell?” 

“An unforeseen consequence,” she says smoothly, and Emma’s hand squeezes around her arm until it aches. “It seems to be all right now.” 

Emma nods, still looking dazed. The high from her success before has faded as quickly as it had come, and she says, “I’m going to go take a quick shower then go pick up Henry from Granny’s.” 

“So early today?” David asks.

She nods. “I…uh…I haven’t seen much of him since I brought him to town and it’s not fair to him.” She looks even more spooked now, and Regina thinks she sees guilt flickering at the corners of her eyes.  _Odd_. 

“Maybe we can all meet at the diner later for dinner,” Snow suggests, and there’s a flash of something dark and frustrated in Emma’s eyes before she nods and smiles and vanishes upstairs. Regina knows what’s hidden behind her gaze, remembers the desperate desire for her son to be  _hers_ , not Emma’s or the Charmings’ or Neal’s, the unwillingness to share because she’s stumbled into a universe where motherhood is fleeting and family is twisted and broken away from her. 

But Emma will have Henry to herself again soon. Emma is going back to New York and leaving them all, and she’s tired of fighting the resentment that emerges whenever she thinks of it. Her son is a stranger and her presence in his life is nonexistent, there but for the grace of Emma Swan, and she has every right to be angry about that.

Even if she’s so tired of being angry.

She pours herself a cold glass of water and sits down beside David on the couch, rubbing her temples in an attempt to stave off the incoming headache. “You’re all set,” she says, sipping at the water as it cools her dry lips. “Zelena can’t break through both our magic, or we’re in more trouble than we’d thought.” 

“Thank you.” Snow leans forward, eyes drooping a bit as she does. “Emma seems to be embracing the magic lately, doesn’t she?”

“She’s coming to terms with her potential, yes.” She has the oddest sensation of deja vu. It’s almost as though it’s two years ago again, and she’s the mother and Mary Margaret Blanchard is spouting out the same words at parent-teacher conferences. “She’s very determined to stop Zelena.” 

“Still, magic is a commitment,” Snow presses. “That’s what you said earlier. She can’t learn magic and then leave for New York again.” Her mouth widens in those distinct Snow-White-Told-A-Secret stylings and Regina blinks.

“You  _know_ she’s planning on going back?”

“She might’ve mentioned it to me,” David says, and both look apologetic. It’s almost as though the two idiots have finally remembered that Henry is her son, too. Almost. “I don’t think she’ll follow through on it.” 

“Her home is here,” Snow agrees, but she, at least, has the decency to look vaguely worried about it. “She’s an adult and we can’t stop her, but I know she’ll understand that soon.” 

She doesn’t care about Emma changing her mind, she cares about  _Henry_ , her son in the hands of a woman who’s been known to run at the chance of pain and whose parents are leaving her to work it out on her own. “And if not, maybe she’ll come by with Henry on holiday weekends,” she says, scowling into her glass.

Snow opens her mouth, then closes it. “Let’s talk about cribs! Did you know that the ones with sliding sides aren’t safe anymore? What do you do if your arms aren’t long enough, just drop the baby in and hope for the best?”

She sighs and purses her lips, putting aside a conversation that isn’t any of her business to begin with. “Henry survived just fine with a sliding crib wall.” Last night she’d been roped into a phone call about Back to Sleep and its benefits, and she’s horrified to discover that she  _enjoys_ discussing babies with Snow White. It calls back to a time when Henry had been hers and she’d finally found peace, and now her mortal enemy thinks they’re _…gal pals_. “Why don’t you talk to your friend Ella about this? Didn’t she have twenty-eight years to read up on babies?” 

Snow cocks her head at her, unimpressed, and she’s never looked more like Emma than in that moment. “Okay, but look at this study,” she says, ignoring Regina’s reminder of  _mortal enemies not gal pals_ , and beckoning her over to her seat. 

They’re halfway into a spirited debate on the carelessness of new mothers when Emma appears at the bottom of the stairs, wet hair tied back, her red jacket over her arm, and a pair of plaid pants on under an admittedly nice dark turtleneck. Regina stares at her. “Are you going out or going to bed?” 

“What?” She glances down. “Oh, shut up. You coming?” She heads for the door as though that had always been the plan, and Regina blinks in surprise and follows, oddly gratified by the invitation.

Which makes her even more annoyed, because she shouldn’t be subject to Emma’s whims around her son.  _Still_. “Those pants are atrocious,” she says, mostly to stave off both gratitude and resentment that will take her nowhere but in the same circles, over and over again.

“Yeah, like your outfit is any…” Emma pauses for long enough to cast a lingering gaze on Regina’s pants and jacket, and Regina waits patiently. “Well,” she says, licking her lips. 

Her eyes are lidded over just a touch too long, and Regina says, heat rising at the look in Emma’s eyes, “Did I write a preference for women into your memories or were you always like this?” They’d always stood too close and stared too long like some goddamned song from the nineties, but she doesn’t remember quite so much complacency about it before. Not since Zelena and magic and Emma’s lips tearing into hers against the wall of her living room.

Emma brushes her ponytail back over her shoulder. “I don’t know,” she says, the stirrings of mischief in her voice. “Maybe you did. Maybe this is some  _agenda_  of yours.” 

“Maybe I just saw all the plaid and got the wrong idea,” Regina retorts, wincing at the pants again. Emma pulls on her jacket and she shudders.

“Wrong idea,” Emma echoes. They emerge onto the street and Emma bypasses her car, quickening her pace so she’s already ahead of Regina when she says, voice low and amused, “Right.” 

Regina’s eyebrows shoot up. “What?” But Emma is turning the corner toward Main Street, a smirk her only proffered response.

She lets out an irritated huff and follows, stalking behind Emma and glaring down at her pants. Which aren’t doing her ass  _any_ favors, mind. This is a woman who belongs in skintight jeans and– 

Said ass turns away from her, and when she looks up it’s into Emma’s knowing eyes. She quirks her lips in response and moves ahead, adding an extra swish to her hips as she walks past Emma. Emma grins and matches her step, the two of them walking together now. 

“You didn’t have to bring me along if you wanted some alone time with Henry,” Regina says finally. It still hurts to give Emma all the power there, but it’s a little less painful every time today. Maybe she’s adapting. It’s been less than a month of memories since the curse, and just over half a year of them since she’d stood in her doorway and watched David walk off with Henry the first time. And she’s barely seen him since.  _No_. No, the minute she accepts that Henry is gone is the moment she loses him forever, and she clings to her bitterness as best as she can, as forced as she can.

“No, I don’t mind if…” Emma shakes her head, like there’s too much rocking around within it and she needs to free it. “I’m just trying to do right by everyone, okay? And I know there’s no way I can make it up to you when I go, but while we’re here…” She tucks her thumbs into the inside of her jacket. “I’m sorry. I know this is a crap deal for you and I know you didn’t want to see him to begin with. If you want to go home or come back for dinner–“ 

She’s babbling, looking nervous and tired and stretched too thin, and Regina interjects, “Emma.” Her voice is softer than she’d meant for it to be, and maybe she’s done too good a job of pushing that resentment out of her system. Or maybe it’s seeing Emma like this, trying to be everything everyone wants her to be, obedient daughter and magical savior and loving mother, and Regina still isn’t an afterthought to her.

She hasn’t been anything but an afterthought to anyone since the first curse had broken, and she’s alarmed to discover how unbalanced it makes her to hear Emma so earnest about her needs. “This is fine,” she says to the other woman’s intent eyes, and Emma visibly relaxes.

“Okay. I…that’s good. I think this is good for you, too.” She sighs, hands sliding to the bottom of the jacket so she can fiddle at the ends. “I hate this. I hate lying to him.” 

“It doesn’t get easier,” Regina says, because she can remember how Henry’s face had gotten more and more thunderous with every truth she’d dismissed. She remembers insistences that she didn’t love him, that she was  _evil_ , that she wasn’t his mother at all. And she’d been frustrated and angry and helpless, because the truth had been so much more toxic than the lie and she’d been determined to keep him for as long as she could cling to their false lives. “And you do have purer motives than I did,” she says reluctantly. 

“Do I?” Emma asks, kicking at a stone on the road. They’re nearly at the center of town now, and they slow their stride as a unit. “We both know that if he remembered- if he knew any of it- he wouldn’t want to go. If he ever got his memories back, he’d never forgive me.” She clenches her fists tighter on the jacket and when Regina glances over at her, she’s startled at the absolute devastation on Emma’s face.

Whatever this is runs deeper than just fear, and she narrows her eyes. “What are you keeping from me?”

Emma startles visibly, hands dropping flat to her sides. “Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” 

She doesn’t look up at her. “It’s between me and Henry.”

“If it’s about Henry, I have a right to–“ 

“It’s between  _me and Henry_!” Emma snaps out, magic crashing in her eyes, and then looks stunned at her own loss of temper. Regina is taken aback, too. For all Emma’s headstrong stupidity, it’s rare that she ever loses control like that. She can count on one hand the number of times she’d provoked Emma enough for that kind of sudden outburst. But everything is close to the surface now, too easy to awaken and bring Emma to fury as she had the week before, and Emma sags and Regina immediately regrets pushing it.

“I understand,” she says, and her voice is still doing that odd gentle thing. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

“Yeah.” They’re not friends. They’re barely allies. They don’t open up to each other over girl talk and anything other than their shared love for Henry, and Regina doesn’t expect– 

“Just…sometimes I wish you’d never given us those memories.” Regina stares at her. Emma shakes her head. “No. I don’t wish that. I just…” She looks down again. “I gave Henry up for his best chance. I was this useless eighteen-year-old kid without any money or home or future beyond a doofy car and I knew, I  _knew_ that if I was the one to raise him he’d be taken away from me. He’d be back in the foster system, just like me, and I couldn’t do that to him. So I gave him up.” 

They’ve stopped walking somewhere along the way, just across the street from Granny’s, and Emma leans back against a tree and stares into the windows of the diner. And Regina understands at last. “But now you have memories of the two of you being together all along without losing him.” 

“What am I supposed to tell him, Regina?” Emma demands, and the magic churns on behind her eyes, the air around her like static. “How am I supposed to explain to him that I never had to abandon him? That our memories could have been real?” 

She tries talking and it’s all so damnably sympathetic that she starts again, voice as hard as she can make it. Because she has no sympathy for Emma Swan. None. Not even when she’s naked-eyed and desolate and all of Regina’s instincts are to comfort her.  _No_. “You tell him what I’m going to tell you now. That it’s a  _fairytale_.” Her hands are on Emma’s before she can stop herself, and the magic is calming and flowing between them as she points out, “Your memories before last year are all smoke and mirrors. You know they happened but when you try to think of  _how_ , you’re left with nothing.” 

“That’s not…” Emma shakes her head. “I remember some kind of…some program took us in after I got out?” But she sounds unsure, and there’s more than a little relief in her voice. 

“It didn’t happen, Emma.” She squeezes her hands and forces herself to ignore the warmth in her belly when Emma squeezes back. “You couldn’t have taken care of Henry like that. What you could- and did- do was give Henry a home where he was–“ Not safe, not even happy after a while. Not what he’d have in New York, but she’d given him a home where he’d believed in heroes and goodness even when she’d privately lost all faith in them. “Where he was loved,” she says finally. “With all my heart. Maybe it wasn’t what you wanted–“ 

“It was  _all_ I wanted.” Emma’s heart is in her eyes in that moment, the magic faded and nothing left but a gaze that means everything and Regina can’t pretend that Emma is the enemy anymore. Not even over Henry. Their hands are still together, Emma clasping hers now, and she murmurs, “Thanks,” and her eyes shine again as she drops them.

“You’re welcome,” Regina says, equally quiet, and it’s something they’ve never talked about before but it feels all-encompassing in that moment, a leap forward that she wouldn’t have imagined they’d take. And Emma moves forward in those ridiculous plaid pants and that horribly matching jacket and all she wants is for this walk to keep going forever, until they’ve exhausted every secret dream about Henry and all that’s left is the two of them.

But Granny’s is right across the street and she’s dwelling on emotions that she hasn’t felt since she was a teenager, and instead she follows Emma as the other woman says, “You know, you’ve really changed a lot since your Mayor Mills days.” 

“Yes, well.” She flushes, suddenly flustered at the acknowledgement. “I had motivation.” Henry, Henry. Her whole world begins and ends with him, no matter where he is or who she is to him now.

They make their way into the outside area and up the stairs into Granny’s. “You didn’t last year.” 

“We don’t know  _what_ happened last year. I might not have cast a curse that would have required the heart of the thing I love most, but that’s all we know,” she reminds her. “Nothing to throw a parade over.”

Emma grins. “Do you expect a parade every year of good behavior? Just a bunch of giant apple floats and you sitting in the center of them.” 

She sniffs. “Of course not.” The smile creeps onto her face, unbidden. “I would ride. I’m very skilled.” 

“Oh, I’ll bet you are.” Emma’s voice takes on another cadence, low and promising, and Regina’s eyebrows spike up in response.

She’s opening her mouth to respond again when the door to the diner opens just as Emma’s about to open it and a man glares down at her. “Mayor Mills,” he says coldly.

Albert Spencer. King George in another world. And less than pleased to see her. “District Attorney,” she says, nodding curtly. “If you don’t mind moving aside…” 

“Actually, I do mind.” She hears the threat in his tone and Emma tenses beside her. “I mind a lot about the  _liberties_ you’ve taken with me and mine with your curses and  _this town_.” He sneers at her and she sees Henry on the far side of the diner, just beside the counter, scooting off his seat. No. “And if you think you can walk freely through the streets–“ 

“Hey!” Emma objects, raising a hand. “You saw the bulletins. We’ve discovered that it was the Wicked Witch, not Regina this time.” 

“Same difference,” George says, and he shoves Regina, that proper little sneer still on his face.

She catches herself on the railing and twists around in fury and it’s just in time to see George doubled over in sudden agony, clutching onto his heart as though he’s having a heart attack, and Emma’s staring at him with such fierce hatred that there’s no doubt in her mind exactly what’s causing it. “Help…me…” he grunts out an order. A man behind him- small and obeisant, and she hadn’t noticed him before at all- reaches for his phone and begins dialing paramedics, speaking frantically.

And Emma is still glaring at him, barely perceptible magic moving through her with a focus that Regina’s never seen before during her losses of control. Almost as though it’s intentional, not just wild power but Emma herself, angry enough on her behalf to inflict injury. Angry enough to forget to catch Regina altogether. 

Regina seizes her hand and nearly falls again from the force of the fury. “Emma,” she hisses through gritted teeth, and the magic is buzzing through her again, hot and tempting and suddenly absolutely necessary. She can feel Emma’s desire, strong and insistent, and it’s too close to her own for her to deny it.

It takes the sight of Henry, now bent over King George as well with polite concern, for her to remember herself, and she forces calmness with that memory, lets it seep through her until it touches Emma where they’re connected and George’s hand leaves his chest again. Emma chews hard on her lip and Regina can feel the rage still simmering within her, seeking to lash out again.

But no one in this diner needs to know that their savior is so volatile, hanging by a thread and sometimes not even that.  _Emma_ doesn’t need anyone to know that, to see into her and judge her for her anger, and the surge of protectiveness that accompanies that thought is unnecessary, probably unwanted, but patently present all the same. 

“I–“ Emma starts, and Regina squeezes her fingers and takes a step forward imperiously. “You’d do well to stay out of my way,” she orders, and flicks a finger at George and watches him flinch. “Or I’ll do worse than that next time.” 

George growls a particularly offensive response but she ignores it as easily as she does Emma’s panicked relief and turns to Henry, a disarming smile on her face. “Terrible man,” she says casually. “I’ve never seen him so afraid before.” 

“That was just fear?” He’s frowning at her like he’s ten again and about to run to his secret walkie talkie conferences with Emma. 

And she won’t lie to him, never again, so she spreads her hands and says with absolute honesty, “Well,  _I_ certainly had nothing to do with it.” 

“Duh.” They laugh and Emma adds her own weak laugh to theirs, hand still trembling in Regina’s grasp. But it’s warm and it’s comfortable and if there’s reason to end it, it’s getting more and more difficult to consider that now. 

This needs to be addressed- all of Emma’s magic needs to be addressed, now more than ever- but not with Henry around and not in public like this. They’ll talk about it later.

_Later._

* * *

 

**vi. perforation**

In one of the later group homes, there had been a little girl with night terrors who had lain in her bed at night and shrieked at an imaginary foe, fought him off and cried so loudly that no one had been able to sleep. Emma had sat with her some nights, stroking her hair and whispering calming platitudes she hadn’t believed until the girl would quiet, and they’d all been exhausted in the mornings. Their house mother had never asked about it when they’d fall asleep at the table at midday or when the dark circles under their eyes grew darker and darker, just warbled in what might have been an attempt at a song, “Count sheep, sweetheart, and sleep will follow.”

Emma had never counted sheep, but now she counts people as she stares at the ceiling in her dark room at Granny’s. People she has, people who know her name- and there are so many now, more than ever before- people she’s determined to protect. And it’s not just one little girl anymore but tiers and tiers of fairytale refugees, this town that has taken her on to be their savior. 

_Ava and Nicholas Tillman. Jefferson’s daughter Grace. Ashley Boyd and Alexandra. The Lost Boys she’d promised a home to. Kathryn Nolan. Marco and not-August. Leroy. Tiny._

Gold had been the one to tell her about this as a way to access her magic, and she can feel it most potently like this, the world still and silent around her but for for the rhythm of her breath. It’s simmering below the surface, always at the ready, and while she’d once willfully ignored it as simple adrenaline, now she recognizes it for what it is. It moves, sluggish with her peaceful thoughts, and intensifies as she ups a tier. 

_Ruby and Granny. Hook._ Even Gold, as Neal’s father, and Belle _. Archie._  The energy picks up, strong enough that she can see it behind her eyelids when she blinks.

Her family _. David and Mary Margaret._ The magic is coursing through her now, faster and faster as her heart rate speeds up and she clenches her fists.  _Henry_. All she sees is blue now, light and glowing like a visible aura as white races around within it, faster and faster and–

_Regina_. The magic intensifies, so fast it’s almost white, and she realizes suddenly that her breath is ragged and unsteady and her hand is pressed against her abdomen, struggling to contain a heaving in her stomach she can’t name. Regina is…Regina _can’t be_ her family. Regina exists outside these lists because she’s something utterly unquantifiable.

She’d left her down at the diner with Henry tucked under her arm, because apparently now her son wants to ride horses  _and_  sail ships and Regina has a surprising depth of knowledge of both. (The latter sounds more like an eHow page than actual life experience, and she’d treated herself to the image of Regina stalking home the first time Henry had called Hook awesome and doing research on pirates for the next thirty hours.) She’d ducked out when Mary Margaret had started asking her about what Neal had been called in the Enchanted Forest in the middle of a conversation about baby names and had accidentally caught Regina’s troubled eyes halfway out the door.

She knows she’s due a lecture for what she’d done to DA Spencer but she thinks she should probably muster up some false regret before Regina starts in on her. Because hurting him? Not really an issue. Her fists clench again at the image, Regina startled and falling backward, and  _oh god_ she’d tried to kill Spencer instead of grabbing Regina.

She sits up, the magic gone in a flash, and her head is spinning at the possibility there, of Regina crumpled on the ground because she’d been careless and angry. And maybe Regina isn’t family but the devastation of that, of failing her and watching her hurt and helpless, is as painful in hypothetical as seeing Mary Margaret in the same position.

She breathes hard, controls her oxygen intake so it’s in through her nostrils and out through her mouth and her heart quiets a beat, and then someone says, “Too bad. I was enjoying the light show.” 

She recognizes the voice and is across the room in the next instant, gun in hand and pointed at the window where Walsh is crouched, mouth in a smirk just behind the place where it’s cracked open. He slides long fingers under it and yanks it up, ducking into the room as she wavers in place.

And he still looks so  _normal_ , like he’s about to walk into her house and ask Henry about the book he’s reading and pull a half-dozen roses out from behind his back. He’d always treated Henry like an equal but never pretended to be one of the boys to ingratiate himself with him, and she’d… _loved_ that about him, she thinks, her stomach twisting with revulsion. He’d never pretended to be doing anything other than winning her over and keeping her to him like a Hook-in-training, and he’d…

He’d never done anything other than  _pretending._  She’d put up a thousand guards around her heart and made a career out of seeding out the liars and she’d fallen for him, hook, line, and sinker. “Get out or I’ll shoot you, you fucking  _animal_.” 

She gets a disarming smile for that, the kind he’d put on when she’d told him that she didn’t date seriously. He’d said,  _Let me show you what you’re missing_ and had taken her out to the harbor the next afternoon with no warning and she’d laughed against the wind and admitted it wasn’t that bad. “You know, I wasn’t always a flying monkey. I was just a normal guy from Nebraska who wound up in Oz and might have led Zelena astray on a few tiny things.” He spreads his hands. “She didn’t like it.” 

“Oh my god.” She takes a step back, her elbows slackening as her grip weakens on her gun. “Oh, god, I fucked the Wizard of Oz.” She has a thing for the Evil Queen, Captain Hook is supposedly in love with her, and she’d nearly been engaged to the _Wizard of Oz_. 

Of course. Only another con artist could run a con like that on her. And this is her fucking life now, where she can’t even think  _who are you_ when the answer always requires a  _what_. Because this damned town is a disease that follows her no matter where she runs, violates her trust and her peace and everything she tries so desperately to keep to herself. “I can’t believe I let you near my son.” 

“Oh, don’t worry. I have no interest in him.” 

“Right. Now you don’t need Henry anymore.” She tightens her grip again, swinging her arms to follow Walsh as he circles the room.

“ _Zelena_ needs Henry.” Walsh sits on her bed like he owns it and she feels her magic and her gut both screaming out to her to shoot, to finish him off right now and to hell with whatever information he might spill. He’s always been a talker, and now she knows that his stories were all lies, yarns spun just enough to paint the picture of a good guy, self-deprecating but undoubtedly a treasure. “I had one job, and I screwed it up the minute your boy toy came into the picture.” He grins at her. “So now I’m just having fun.” 

“Yeah? This  _is_ fun.” She cocks her pistol. “Got anything worth keeping you alive for?”

“You’ll kill me?” He laughs. “Emma, you’re not a killer. Your pretty little pirate and the queen are killers. Snow White is a killer. You’re just like me- a normal American kid who was brought into a world that needed us to be more.” 

Her grip stays steady, and she sees a dozen memories of him in a haze, a memory of love so tentative she’d been afraid to nurture it into more than it was. She’d trusted, believed in him, dared to imagine a life with someone else in it for the first time since Neal, and he’d been a hustler who’d known all the right words to keep her dreaming. “You have no idea what I’d be willing to do to you.”

“Yeah, but see–“ Walsh drops back on her bed, back against her pillows and knees up. She tenses but her fingers can’t quite pull the trigger. “Here’s the thing, Emma. You’ve got your real memories back now. Twelve years of them. And in those twelve years after that asshole abandoned you, how many people had you had?” He lifts his fingers, counts them off almost casually, like the gun in her hand means nothing to him. “Anyone? Nah?” His thumb and pointer come together into a zero. “And the only guy you loved- who you thought loved you- that was me.” 

She refuses to react, to give him any more material than he already has, and her magic is whirling in frenzied circles around her heart and spine and stomach, winding tighter and tighter until she doesn’t think she can be contained by it anymore without bursting right now. Without collapsing under the weight of deceit- another man she’d loved with a life she’d never known, but this one so much more malicious than the last, and now Neal is dead and gone and Walsh is laughing at her for her trusting stupidity.

She’d been pregnant in prison with no visitors, insisting she’d been framed by a guy to anyone who would listen until no one listened anymore, and she’s no stranger to this wave of mockery, to feeling like an idiot for the sin of trusting too easily. And she’d sworn then to never do it again, only to be rewritten and cast out of her own life into another where she’d let her defenses go.

And it still  _hurts_ , hurts like the foolishness of hopes she was never made to have. It hurts like smashing into Neal in Manhattan. It hurts like the Echo Cave and  _but she’s all grown up._ It hurts like waking up one morning in the infirmary with her hand on her stomach and nothing kicking against it. 

And yet she can hate Albert Spencer enough to nearly kill him over hurting her…Regina…and all she can do against Walsh on her own behalf is squeeze the grip of her gun with all the fingers but the ones on the trigger and will herself not to tremble. Her magic won’t leave her, won’t strike out as it has even Regina for prodding the wrong buttons, and she feels weak and tiny in front of this creature who’s been made famous for being weak and tiny himself.

They stand in limbo, Walsh unworried on her bed and she reeling and helpless in ways beyond her grasp and she wants to fire, to make him pay, and she  _can’t_. Her magic can lash out at threats to Regina or Henry or whatever parenthood Mary Margaret and David can claim but for herself she’s– 

She recalls old mottos, determinations she’d developed over years of being nobody to anyone, even herself.  _You just gotta punch back and say no. This is who I am._

And she doesn’t know who she is anymore. Not orphan. Not daughter. Not savior. Not runaway. Just a lost girl with too many memories and regrets and responsibilities she’s struggling to juggle all at the same time, and she’s never enough for any of them.

“Catch you later, lover,” Walsh says, hands clasped behind his head, and then he throws himself forward and she’s firing on instinct, a moment too late, as a winged monkey shoots past her and out the window with a loud screech.

She sets her gun down and hurls herself toward the bed, claws at the sheets until they’re on the floor and yanks off the comforter cover and shakes out the pillows until the bed is bare and she’s on her knees on the floor surrounded by bedding, hands buried in the mess and her teeth caught hard on her lip until a single fat drop of blood wells up and spots the white sheet.

She doesn’t hear the knocking. Or maybe she ignores it altogether until the door slides open behind her and Hook says, “Swan? Are you all right?” 

And all she hears is the staccato clipping of heels on linoleum behind him. “Henry’s out again,” Regina says, and Emma turns. “Emma, Zelena–“ She stops as her eyes land on Emma and then she’s hurrying past Hook to crouch beside her. “What happened to you?” 

“Oh.” Emma stands up, and today putting on her face feels almost like a paint-by-numbers portrait. Eyes rolling in irritation. Lips curled down in a half-frown. Nose scrunched in disgust. “I saw a spider. I might have overreacted.” She laughs, forced and halfhearted, and two sets of dark eyes blink at her, then turn to the wide open window in tandem.

Regina is the one to speak, Hook still gazing at Emma with blatant concern that she dodges. “We have other problems than your bedmates,” she says, and it’s such a specific ambiguous statement that Emma twitches and glares up at her. “Zelena came to see us in the diner.” 

That’s enough to push all thoughts of Walsh from her mind and Emma stands up, letting the sheets pool down around her. “Henry was there.” She twitches again, dark memories returning of the night before. She’s been doing her best to suppress them, to think as little as she can of the moment Henry’s eyes had glazed over and she’d accidentally taken a tiny piece of his memories from him.

_Accidentally_. She’d never meant to do it, and she’d have no idea how to return them, not when there are so many other memories he’s still lost. There’s no use in dwelling on something she can’t change, even when there’s a taste like tar in her mouth when she thinks of it. It’s just a…fortunate accident. For Henry’s sake. (For her sake, she won’t admit, though she  _knows_ it with every excuse she finds.)

“Henry was asleep,” Regina informs her. “It’s been a long day. He and Snow both passed out at the table before Zelena walked in.” A ghost of a smile plays on her lips, a tiny touch of fondness for both that Emma is discreet enough not to comment on. “And Zelena didn’t say anything incriminating, just waved the Dark One’s dagger around and made threats at me.” 

For  _that_ her magic rises and she takes a step forward, gripping Regina’s arm. “At you?”

“It seems Regina’s the one she’s here for,” Hook says dryly. “Claims she’s her sister. Cora never mentioned.” 

“ _Sister_?” Emma squeezes her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “What did you do to her?” 

“Nothing.” Regina sounds irritated, as though she’s already been asked this question a dozen times. “I don’t even know if she’s telling the truth. She was grandstanding and demanded I fight with her outside and then she threw me into the clock tower.” 

“She…” Regina doesn’t  _look_ injured, just annoyed, and Emma has no idea how she’d missed the sounds of a fight outside. Walsh had had her narrowed into a tiny little world of the two of them, and she’d been unable to look beyond it for long, agonizing moments. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Regina grits her teeth. “She wants my heart.” But she’s staring at the wall to the room beside Emma’s when she says it, her meaning clear. 

“Henry,” Emma breathes, and at once she’s pulling out the spare key she has for his room and moving past both of her visitors, unlocking his door and peering inside. His window is shut, the protection spell they’d put on his room still intact and glowing faintly at the edges of the walls, and he’s snoring lightly in the bed. She falls back against the doorpost, staring worriedly at him. 

Regina is standing behind her a moment later, her head against the wall just above Emma’s shoulder. “He’s safe. Hook looked after him in the diner when Zelena had me distracted.” Emma turns to watch her at she talks, their faces millimeters apart, and she notes that Regina’s lip doesn’t even give its customary curl at Hook’s name this time. She must have been  _terrified_. She rubs her hands against Regina’s arms, comforting and tentative, and Regina’s eyes don’t leave hers until she pulls away.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, shifting back to smile at Hook. 

He’s watching them as though he’s never seen either of them before, puppy eyes fully activated, but he musters up a smirk for her. “Aye, it was the least I could do. I arrived with a message from Robin Hood- activity at Zelena’s home- just moments too late for that.” 

“Huh. Convenient.” Hook looks insulted and she hastens to clarify, “Not you.” She trusts Hook. She doesn’t know this Robin Hood, who hadn’t made a great first impression and now has curious timing. Regina is looking at Henry now with fierce focus and suspicion stirs somewhere deep within Emma. “Something to look into.” 

“Aye,” Hook says again, and he shifts from side to side, eyes moving from her room to Regina- who shows no sign of moving- to Henry, and then he says, “I’ll be going, then,” and Emma flashes him another smile as he heads for the door to the stairs.

When he’s gone, Regina slides a stray wisp of hair behind Emma’s ear and mutters, “You’re sleeping in here tonight, aren’t you?” 

Emma nods, flushing at the whisper of a touch at her cheek. “I know he’s getting too old to share a bed with. It’s…” 

“Terrifying,” Regina finishes, and there’s so much sorrow in her voice that Emma knows it’s for the time she’s lost, the time she isn’t getting back. The time she might not have when Emma leaves again. “You go to him,” she says in a bare whisper. “I don’t think even a flying monkey can break through our protection spell.” 

Emma twists around again. Regina’s eyes are close and very, very brown, so shiny she can almost see her own face in them. “He’s trying to unbalance you.” 

“It’s working,” she admits, licking her lips. She’d spent nine months coming to terms with the fact that she’d been lovable- not as a daughter or mother or whatever weird fixation Hook has on her but as something wholly different, and now Walsh holds her heart in his hands.

Regina touches her hands lightly. It’s barely any contact, the tips of fingers against the tips of fingers, and Emma wonders what it would be like to kiss her like that, just a brush of her lips against hers, and to watch Regina’s eyes darken in response. 

Maybe her heart is in pieces, after all, and Walsh only possesses one jagged part of it.

“Go to sleep,” Regina whispers, guiding her into the room. Emma climbs over Henry onto the bed, sandwiched between him and the wall and on top of the blankets with an arm tight around him.

She can still see Regina even as exhaustion returns to blur her gaze, hovering over both of them with unreadable eyes. “Sister?” she says again.

Regina shrugs. “Another enemy,” she corrects, a shadow of  _something_ below the surface. “We’ll talk in the morning.” 

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m sure, Emma.” She says Emma’s name like a lullaby, soft and so slow it’s nearly lilting. “You go to sleep. Take care of Henry.” 

But she doesn’t move yet and Emma doesn’t want her to. She’s in that place between sleep and wakefulness where thoughts flow freely, where her mind makes connections that slide through the cracks in her protective walls and seem suddenly so simple. “I thought that this was how we’d leave Neverland,” she says drowsily. She’d lain awake at night in the woods, watching over the camp as Regina had tossed and turned in her bedroll, and she’d imagined the three of them stretched out in a too-small bunk together, Henry between them and neither one willing to move from his side. She’d imagined peaceful murmurs and hands clasped over him and more of those smiles like the ones after they’d stopped the trigger together.

She doesn’t elaborate but Regina says, “So did I,” and her voice is scratchy and a little hoarse and Emma knows that she’s going to retreat soon, too, return to her empty mansion and curl up in Henry’s old bed and hold his pillow like Emma’s holding Henry himself. But Regina doesn’t have Henry anymore.

And she’s small and selfish and weak and she doesn’t know why she always runs, runs, runs when all she wants is that bed in the Jolly Roger, Emma-Henry-Regina and Regina’s fingers on hers as they sail away to freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> much thanks to all of you for reading and your feedback, y'all are amazing. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with thanks to maria re: bifurcation. <3

**vii. bifurcation**

_Cora, dear, I finally got my hands on your firstborn. Never thought I’d find her, did you? Now I know why. She’s the most powerful sorceress I’ve ever encountered, even more powerful than you. Stunning in every way._

Regina folds the letter again, dropping it into her pocket as her mind, unbidden, echoes the words again and again.  _The most powerful sorceress I’ve ever encountered_. She’s read this letter before, been inspired and driven by it, and it hadn’t been about her, after all.

Zelena is her sister, and with that knowledge comes a surge of sorrow and fear that she doesn’t expect. She leans against the wall of her father’s crypt and wonders, for a moment, dreams of a sister to grow up with and whisper secrets to and to protect and be protected by–

A sister to kill, who wants only to destroy her.  

She thinks back to the night before, being hurled into the clock tower and Zelena leaping after her and the sudden knowledge that this had been a woman she had had no chance against. That her magic had been outmatched for the first time ever and she’s as close to helpless as she’ll ever be with it. 

Zelena can’t be her sister, not in her thoughts or heart. Not if she wants to protect her family against her.

And what can she do? Get thrown into another car? Another building? The hopelessness rises as she touches her pocket again, processing Rumple’s words once more. Zelena is hugely powerful, has the Dark One doing her dirty work, and all Regina has is…

_Emma_. There’d been a time when she might have craved that kind of power, sought to control it if only to keep it from anyone else. But now she finds that all she wants is to fight beside Emma and do what they do best as a unit. And Emma is Regina’s own powerhouse, still gawky and untrained with her magic but powerful enough nonetheless.

She turns for the exit, new confidence brewing. Her chest still hurts where Emma had struck her on the day they’d visited Zelena’s house, the magic not lethal or scarring, just as Mother’s had been back in her heyday. But Emma isn’t Mother, her magic instinctive and uncontrolled, and she’s only dangerous for as long as she still struggles to use it properly. And under Regina’s guidance, she’ll be more than adequate. 

Her phone beeps as soon as she leaves the crypt and she fishes it out. One missed call from the hospital. She’d been waiting for that one since last night, and she bites back her irritation at Whale’s tardiness and dials the number again.

“There’s nothing there,” he says when she’s patched through to him. “No lasting damage, no harm to the heart at all. I can see bruising from your fingers on the x-rays, but it didn’t leave any other effects. Whatever you did to him, you did it very neatly.” 

There’s clinical admiration in Whale’s voice, one expert to another regardless of what they’ve both inflicted on each other in the past.  _Scientists_ , she thinks scornfully, and says, “Yes, I did. Thank you,” and hangs up, troubled.

Because Emma uncontrolled makes  _sense_. Emma without the skills to tame her magic is their problem to address, their only concern until now. She’s lashed out and leaked magic and lost control more times than Regina can count on one hand at this point, and it’s all been expected, all a side effect of a very volatile woman learning to take the reins of the power within her. 

But Emma had had her magic completely under control when she’d attacked King George, using the kind of precision that Regina hadn’t learned after years of practice. She’d struck out, sustained her magic with astounding focus, and been so exact that she’d only hurt his heart.  _Bruised it_. Regina has never so much as thought to demonstrate how to take a heart, and Emma had mentally reached inside of George and squeezed his heart until it had nearly turned to dust.

She stares at her phone, disturbed, and scrolls down to Emma’s name on her favorites list. She feels… _wrong_ , lecturing Emma on responsible use of magic and what anger can do to her, as though she’s reducing her whole past to anger management issues instead of the early devastation and desperation that it had been, but Emma can’t go on like this and there’s no one else who can teach her moderation. Certainly not the Blue Fairy, who’s made her disapproval of Regina’s corruption of Emma clear. 

_Had_  she corrupted Emma? Had she somehow repeated the mistakes of her own training on Emma to bring out something far more dangerous there? She’s never placed much stock in the insistence of differences between dark and light magic or of Emma’s supposed goodness from being the child of true love, but now she wonders if she’d been careless. If she’d let her own perceptions of Emma as the savior, as someone inherently good, color her confidence in Emma’s training.

No. That’s ridiculous. Emma is Emma and Regina doesn’t give a damn about what titles she’s been given. She’s had enough of labels and separations between good and evil as though there’s no way to bridge that gap, and she knows that Emma feels the same way. Whatever had happened, it isn’t her fault.

And yet she’s still uncertain, replaying memories of her telling Emma how to use her anger. How to focus. How to protect. She has rarely manipulated as Rumple had delighted in doing, but she’s been frank and straightforward about which of his methods had worked. She’s still responsible as Emma’s teacher, and she needs to warn Emma about what she’s capable of no matter how close it might be to hypocrisy. She won’t let history repeat itself with another floundering woman too strong and hurting too much. 

Her finger touches down on Emma’s number just as she looks up and catches sight of a familiar figure across the cemetery.  _Henry_. She ends the call before the first ring and walks purposefully around winding paths until she’s just behind him.

He’s crouching beside Neal’s grave, notebook in hand, and he writes another sentence in it before he looks up. “Hi, Mayor Mills.” He stands, looking down guiltily at some crushed flowers. “I was just…visiting.” 

“Does Emma know you’re here?” She can’t believe that Emma would leave Henry alone  _just_ after Zelena had announced her intentions with him, and she feels fury and fear creeping through her at the thought of it. “You shouldn’t be out alone.” 

Henry shrugs, chin set and almost at his raised shoulder, and she reads him as easily as she always has. “You can’t sneak off like that, Henry,” she says, a tightness in her throat at the thought of it. “There’s a dangerous–“ 

“Stop!” Henry snaps, harsh and angry, and he looks like a little boy convinced that his storybook is real. “Stop telling me things that don’t mean anything! Everyone keeps saying that, telling me it’s dangerous and it’s about my dad, but no one will explain to me why!” He gestures wildly, notebook still clenched in one hand and his pen in the other. “It’s like this whole…this whole  _town_ knows a secret and I’m the only one no one’s bothered to share with.” He glares down at the ground, and Regina hurts, hurts for her baby boy who only ever wants to know everything. “I don’t know why other kids are walking around alone and I’m the only one being supervised and locked up like I’m in danger from this…this…”

“Zelena,” she says, and maybe it’s a mistake but she can’t bear to see Henry like this again, not after the year she’d loathed herself more than even Emma Swan. Not after lies and danger and knowing that Henry would rather sacrifice himself for the truth rather than accept a lie. 

He falls silent, startled, and stares at her. “I can’t tell you everything,” she murmurs, sitting down on a bench at the side of the path, and Henry takes a seat beside her. “I’m sorry. I wish I could.” 

“You’re telling the truth,” he says, amazed, and she wonders if he’s inherited his other mother’s gift for reading her. Or perhaps he’d had it long before Emma Swan had ever come to town. “Who is this Zelena?” 

She almost wraps her arm around his back but remembers herself at the last moment, placing her hands on her lap and twisting her fingers together. “We don’t know much about her. She was…in town for the past year, but no one remembers seeing her before Neal’s death.” She takes a long breath, watching it puff out in a little white cloud in front of her. “And it appears that she may be my sister.” 

Henry gapes. “What?”

“I’m as surprised as you are. My mother told me many lies, but I didn’t expect that one was that I was an only child.” She feels an odd sort of comfort with Henry here, even a Henry who doesn’t remember her. They’d spent ten years together being all the other had had, child and mother in a secret world of their own, and these kind of confidences had been theirs and theirs alone until Henry had been given his book. And now Henry is older, more mature and on the cusp of teenagerhood, and speaking to him feels almost as though she’s speaking to a friend. “She hates me for having the life she’d wanted.” Angry children, lashing out at anyone but the one who’d made them that way.

Henry’s eyes are very wide. “Is she going to hurt you? Why don’t  _you_ have someone protecting you?” He scoots a little closer, his face hardening with the kind of determination she’s seen when they’d run afoul of some of Storybrooke’s angriest citizens just after the curse had broken.

“Because I’m not the one she wants to hurt, sweetheart.” She dares to smooth down some of his ruffled hair, stroking the back of his head as she watches him.

And he’s smart enough to understand right away, to shake his head and open his notebook to a new page, writing  _ZELENA_ across the top in bold letters. She watches fondly, yearning for something she may never have again. “Me. Why does she want me? Because of my dad?” 

“That’s one of the things I can’t tell you.” 

He turns to stare at her with sudden outrage, and she knows he’s going to push her, to demand more until he’s angry and frustrated again. “This is about  _me_! If I’m in danger, shouldn’t I know why?” 

“Yes,” she agrees. “You should.” And Henry must recognize the sincerity in her voice because he deflates, pen scraping doodles onto the page. “I don’t think you’d believe it if I told you, anyway.” 

“Try me,” he says in a challenging tone, and she only smiles sadly at him until he sags again, scowling. “Thank you for telling me that much, at least. No one else would.  _Mom_ wouldn’t.” 

She hears the resentment in his voice and suddenly she doesn’t want Emma to be the villain of this story. She doesn’t want to emerge the hero at Emma’s cost. It’s karmic retribution, maybe, but it isn’t what they do, not anymore. They’re not rivals, and they’d torn each other and Henry apart when they had been. And she has no interest in hurting Emma Swan anymore. “She’s trying to protect you from all of this.”

“Whatever.” He sits back with a loud huff, looking cranky, and they remain in silence for a few minutes before he ventures, “So what are you going to do about her?” 

“I don’t know. She has more…resources than I do,” she says carefully. 

“My mom has lots of resources,” Henry shoots back. “She can beat anyone. And she’s got a gun.” 

“I know. We’re counting on your mom,” Regina says, smiling at him, and it doesn’t feel weak to admit that. It feels like stopping triggers and opening portals and moving the moon, energy coursing through them and  _We did it_ a thousand times more satisfying than  _I did it_. 

“My mom’s kind of a superhero, isn’t she?” Henry says, smug and proud and his resentment forgotten. 

She laughs. “Show your work.” 

He ticks points off his fingers, one at a time, like he used to when they’d practice his spelling. He’d stand at the front of the room like it was a stage and he was a spelling bee champion, and she’d deliver the words to him in her most imposing Mayor Mills voice and try not to smirk, lest he see and think she was mocking instead of proud. “She was an orphan. Check. Tragic past.” He nods to the tombstone. “Check. Beats the bad guys. Check. Multiple love interests.” 

He sneaks a peek at her and she says obligingly, “Multiple?” 

“Walsh, of course. Then Killian’s really into her. And…anyone else in this town who might like her?” He glances up at her again through his eyelashes, and she suppresses a strange flutter in her heart at his implication.

“Maybe Leroy,” she says, face smooth and impassive. 

Henry kicks at the dirt, a pout he’d learned from Emma on his face. “Yeah. Sure.” 

“Henry…” she begins, and then there’s a second voice behind them, echoing his name in urgent tones. 

“Henry! Henry!” They both stand and twist as one and see Emma running toward them, wild and stumbling and- Regina looks down sharply- trailing puffs of blue magic like dust at her feet. “Fucking hell, you can’t run away like that!” 

“Emma!” 

“No.” Emma points a finger at her. “No, you don’t get to reprimand me. You couldn’t have called me? I thought he’d been  _taken_ , I thought he was gone–“ She stops short, breathing hard, and now Regina can see the tears streaking her face, the way she looks so pale and splotchy that it’s as though her skin is translucent and everything below is on display. 

Henry’s face is nearly as pale, his with guilt, and he shuffles and looks ashamed for a moment before stubborn defiance sets in. And Regina thinks back to a dozen times that Henry had run off with Emma during the curse, the  _first_ timewhen he’d left town and she’d thought she’d never see him again, and she closes her eyes and feels only sorrow as Henry hurls back a barrage of hurt. “You’ve been lying to me! You won’t tell me  _anything_ , and people are dying, and now Zelena wants me and you wouldn’t even tell me that!”

She opens her eyes and sees Emma staring at her with abject betrayal and terror in her eyes, and then–

The magic is so automatic that she’d think it was instinctive if not for what she can feel is its purpose, because she’s standing so close to Henry that his knuckles are brushing against hers and Emma’s magic is still familiar enough that she knows it the moment it comes. And it’s direct with clear intent that she recognizes at once and Emma is still staring, still horrified and betrayed, and she twitches her hand and the back of Emma’s jacket catches fire.

Henry shouts a warning and Emma swivels in place, Regina sliding around the bench to her the moment she feels Emma’s magic dissipate. “What the hell are you doing to him?” she demands in a harsh whisper. “Taking even more memories from him?” 

“He can’t know about Zelena!” Emma hisses back. “Do you know how much it’ll screw him up? If this is some twisted plan to keep him in town–“ 

“No, you idiot, this is a plan to keep him from running off because no one will tell him anything!” she growls, aghast. “We don’t  _do_ this anymore. We don’t manipulate Henry to keep him.” She’d lied about the curse and Emma had lied about believing in it and they’d lied, lied, lied and struggled for the son they’d both needed and thought little of his own needs.  _Never again_.

“I know. I know.” Emma swallows loudly. “I just…I went to the bathroom and came back and he was gone. And I couldn’t find him anywhere.” She rocks back and forth, unsteady, and Regina is furious but she catches her anyway, guides her back to the bench where Henry is still staring at them.

And maybe Emma isn’t that far off in her accusations, because Regina hates this and loves it all the same. Because it’s still Henry but he isn’t hers, but he trusts her anyway and isn’t it time she gets to be the mom he talks to again? She should have called, she should have thought of Emma, she should have made more effort to include the one Henry had been frustrated with when they’d told him the truth. And she’s guilty and Henry’s guilty and Emma’s guilty and they’re all so wrong, so wrapped up in their own fears and desires that they’ve disregarded the others.

Emma is at the center of the bench and she’s hanging onto Henry with one arm, holding him so tightly that he mutters a protest, and her other hand is wrapped around Regina’s wrist like a vise. And they’re silent and angry and afraid- of each other, of Zelena, of secrets and pain and the things they don’t know- and Regina can feel Emma’s magic skipping through her body, flowing as easily as her own does through her veins.

It scorches her skin and grazes her heart and it’s so angry and lost that it’s like an addiction, feeding off her fears and magnifying them until all she can remember is a sunny day one year ago, when she’d waved a careful hand and let Henry’s memories rewrite themselves. And she’d been desperate and afraid of losing him, enough to let the town burn as they’d escape, and Emma…

Emma isn’t supposed to be repeating her mistakes. Regina isn’t supposed to be passing them on. None of this is supposed to go this way. They’re the ones who have to defeat Zelena together, and they can’t afford to stumble along the way.

Emma’s magic burns bright and hot inside her and it’s easier to stop worrying about what she might have done to someone she– she cares about, an infinitesimal bit– and to lean back and close her eyes and let the rage match her heartbeat and suffuse her completely.

Oddly, the sensation isn’t far off from absorbing a death spell.

* * *

 

**viii. mystification**

The problem with having a suddenly overprotective mom-  _two_ , it almost feels like these days, Mayor Mills present and hovering with equal concern- is that, even when he’s getting answers, they’re carefully sanitized and he can’t run away to figure them out on his own. He’s stuck in Mayor Mills’s house, Mom and the mayor both in the living room with him, and he can’t so much as walk to the kitchen without one of them casually trailing behind. And he has  _questions_ . 

His dad’s tombstone, for one, because all it says is  _beloved son_ but when Mom had spoken about him over the years, she’d always emphasized that he had been an orphan, just like her. And if his parents are somewhere in this town, then where had they been at his funeral? Henry had already met almost all the people attending, and the few he hadn’t had been much too young to be his grandparents. It doesn’t make  _sense_.

Nothing about this town makes sense, and even knowing about Zelena has given him more questions than answers. 

“So we all kept doing dinner together so you could keep an eye on me?” he asks Mayor Mills, and she smiles uncomfortably and says, “That was a part of it, I suppose.” 

She isn’t lying, exactly, but her face changes when she’s trying to hide things from him, like it physically pains her to do it. “What else?”

“I wanted to spend time with you.” Mayor Mills’s face is gentle and there’s no discomfort on it now, just affection that has warmth spreading through him. (And, yeah, maybe she wouldn’t be the worst mom to have, if Mom ever stops being a butt about it.) “You’re wonderful company.” 

He squirms, blushing, and sits down at the piano again, letting his fingers trace keys they seem to know already. Another oddity of this town, like the time he’d gone walking on his own and found himself standing in front of a school he’d never seen before, and somehow his feet had just…followed the right path back to Granny’s. Or how he’d walked past an unfamiliar girl who’d greeted him by name the day before. Storybrooke has a way of sucking you in, making you feel like you’ve been there forever and you’re going through the same motions, day after day, and his fingers seeking out a melody he’s never learned is just another effect of it.

Mayor Mills sits beside him and this time she plays an accompaniment in a higher key, pausing and skipping notes to accentuate his own. It’s pretty, vaguely familiar, like a lullaby from the nursery he can’t quite remember. “I don’t know how I can do this,” he admits to her, frowning as his fingers skitter across the keys. They’re clumsy and awkward next to the mayor’s graceful hands, but they know their course as long as he doesn’t think about it. 

“Sometimes we have no idea what kind of strengths we have hidden within,” Mayor Mills murmurs. “Not until we’re tested.” She glances once at the couch where Mom is hunched over her laptop, tongue caught between her lip and her teeth, and her face does the same funny kind of thing it does around him, where he can’t tell if it’s fond or sad. 

Maybe it’s both.

Whatever it is, Mom’s glower grows deeper and she hunches lower and the mayor says, still quiet as the music surges around them, “Emma, we do need to talk later.” 

Mom looks…suddenly angry, stubborn in all the ways that Henry knows he reacts to being wrong and guilty for it. “I don’t really think we do.” 

“You–“ 

“I’ve got it covered.” Henry thinks it’s meant to sound flippant but instead Mom just sounds tired. “I know what you’re going to say and  _I know_. Okay? I know.” They’re speaking in riddles again, conversations he isn’t privy to, and he grits his teeth and moves to flop onto the couch, yanking his notebook off the coffee table to write in it.

Mayor Mills looks irritated and equally tired and she says in a curt tone, “I’ll go get dinner started.” She walks out of the room, head high and back very straight, and maybe Henry’s imagining it but Mom is looking after her with a hangdog expression that clears up absolutely nothing.

“She seems angry,” he comments, watching as Mom seems to sink lower into the couch. 

Mom massages her forehead. “Give it a rest, kid.” 

But Mayor Mills is important to Mom and to him and he doesn’t want to see Mom push their friend away like this, refuse to give in to whatever the mayor wants to talk about. “I’m just saying, maybe you should try–“

“I am trying.” Mom closes her eyes, and when she opens them she’s staring blankly at the mantle. “I’m trying to protect everyone and stop Zelena and…and be what I need to be. Who I need to be. I can’t second-guess that just because Regina’s decided it’s time for a heart-to-heart. I’m supposed to be the one who wins this.” She waves vaguely at nothing at all. “It’s what I do.”

"I know, Mom." She used to grin and tell him tall tales when he’d ask her about her cases, spin together truths and outrageous lies like work was all a joke. The longer the case takes, the later she’s out, the more outrageous the stories get. The one time she’d had to go to the hospital to get stitches, back in their second month in New York, she’d insisted that her mark had been an alien who’d tried to abduct her and she’d made him laugh so hard that he’d almost forgotten why they’d really been there. 

But here it’s like she can’t hide the weariness from him anymore, like it’s so oppressive and all-consuming that she has no choice but to display it to the world. It scares him when he sees her like this, all hard edges and knotty muscles, completely changed from the moment they’d entered this town. 

But then there are people who make it  _less_ , who make Mom grin and forget for a little while, and he has to look out for Mom when she isn’t looking out for herself. “But Mayor Mills is your friend, isn’t she?” 

Mom shakes her head on automatic and then stops as though she’s reconsidering, slumping even more. “What do you want from me, Henry?” 

He thinks about it, thinks about Mayor Mills and about Mom and whatever they won’t talk about, and he says, “You should make dinner.” 

“What?” 

Mom looks taken aback, and he rolls his eyes at her. “Go to the kitchen and help her out, okay? She actually gets a little nicer when she’s holding a knife. Have your stupid conversation that you won’t tell me about and make her happy. We can’t lose her.” 

Her face softens at his last statement and she stands up, wraps an arm around his back and kisses the top of his head. “I love you so much. You will  _never_ lose her,” she says tremulously, and Henry doesn’t know why this is so important to her but he knows without doubt that it is. “I swear to you, no matter what happens, you’re going to get to hang on to her.” 

“Uh. Okay.” He likes Mayor Mills but Mom veers from hard-eyed to tearful when he talks about her and it always seems disproportionate, somehow. “Mom?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Did you, like….come here with Mary Margaret after Phoenix? And date Mayor Mills when I was a baby?” 

She stares at him for a minute, blowing a sigh from barely parted lips. “That would have made a hell of a lot more sense, wouldn’t it have?” 

She raises her face to the ceiling in a halfway plea, and he says, “Yeah, probably,” and gives her a little shove toward the doorway.

As soon as she’s clomped through the foyer and into the kitchen, he follows, but takes the long walk up the stairs instead. He knows instinctively- he isn’t sure how, maybe he’s spent time with some childhood friend with this kind of big mansion- that an old house like this one has openings from floor to floor, cracks in one floor that open onto the next ceiling. And the kitchen is just below a linen closet that looks promising.

He winces as he pulls out a stack of perfectly folded towels from below the bottom shelf and hopes very hard that he’ll be able to replace them without giving himself away, and  _yes_. A tiny crack at the place where the wall hits the floor, looking directly into an open cabinet in the kitchen. He can barely see Mom, hovering behind Mayor Mills as the mayor reaches for a dish. 

“You can scramble eggs, I hope?” 

Mom’s brow knits together. “Is that your way of asking me if I’ve fed Henry anything but takeout in the past year? Because Manhattan has some very classy–“ 

“Emma,” Mayor Mills says patiently, holding out a carton of eggs. “That’s my way of asking you to scramble some eggs.” 

“Oh.” Mom blushes and Henry chews on the inside of his cheek, impatient. He isn’t spying on them to watch more of Mom being an overgrown teenager around the mayor. They’re the only two people here who seem to be  _doing_ much when it comes to Zelena, and he knows that anything they talk about might give him some clues. 

“And please tell me that you didn’t feed Henry takeout for a year.” 

“Never,” Mom promises, taking the carton from her. “We lived in a perfect little bubble where I managed my home life and work life and…” She stops.

“Romantic life,” Mayor Mills says mildly, but her face is suddenly stiff where she’s facing the cabinet, away from Mom, and Mom’s jaw is moving like she’s grinding her teeth together. “I think it’s safe to assume that Henry is listening in,” she adds, and Henry jerks back as her eyes move to the top of the cabinet. She can’t see him from that angle, but he’s careful anyway, pulling his face from the listening spot and lying flat against the floor instead.

“Yeah, I figured,” Mom says. He can hear amusement, tinged with pride, in her voice. “That’s…the kid for you.” 

Silence from Mayor Mills for a long moment. “We do need to talk, though.” 

“No, we don’t.” Mayor Mills starts to say something but Mom hurries on. “Here’s the thing. I know what…what you’re going to say. And yeah _._ I can’t say I won’t…if anyone tries to hurt someone I…” Her voice trails off and Henry is just confused enough to press an eye against the crack again and see Mayor Mills still in front of the cabinet, eyes shiny and staring straight ahead as Mom stumbles over her words. “I’m going to try to do better.” 

So Mom had done something, something she doesn’t sound very sorry about even though Mayor Mills is upset about it. “I won’t get Henry involved in…it,” Mom murmurs, and the mayor’s shoulders drop like a load’s been taken off. “I swear.” 

_I wish you would_ , Henry thinks crankily, but then Mayor Mills is speaking again. “It was a mistake to encourage you as I did.” He can’t see anything below her neck but he thinks she’s chopping an onion and maybe that’s why her eyes are glistening. 

Mom turns from her place at the stove, looking as though she’s been struck. “I was that bad?”

“You were that good.” And now the mayor is turning to face her, smoothing a hand along her shoulders as Mom’s hair falls forward and then dropping it again, and Henry can’t see her face anymore. “You are talented and you’ve taken to…exploiting your resources with frightening ease. More than I was prepared for.”

“But only when I’m mad.” Nothing they say makes sense to him, and he can’t even put the pieces together to figure out how they connect. It’s like he’s doing a puzzle and he’s missing all the edges, and without them he’s stuck making lonely matches that have nowhere they belong.

“No.” 

“No?” 

“Only when you’re  _afraid_ ,” Mayor Mills corrects her, and turns back to her spot with such a look of agony on her face that Henry’s heart skips a beat in response. Mom stands very still over the eggs as she draws circles into the frying pan. “We can call it anger, but I don’t think it’s that that’s making you react the way you do.”

“Oh,” Mom says softly, and she shuts off the stove and steps over to where the other woman is standing. “Oh.” She’s looking a little bright-eyed too, staggered by what seems to be a revelation, and they’re silent and way too close and Henry wonders if they’re going to kiss. 

But they don’t. Mayor Mills just finishes her onion and slides it off a cutting board into the eggs. She adds rice and sliced turkey from another pot on the stove and turns the flame on again. “Hoo-  _Killian_  was wrong to bring you here, after all,” Mayor Mills whispers. “It’s too dangerous for you.”

Mom laughs wetly. “Don’t you remember what happens when you tell me to leave town?” Her hand slides up and down Mayor Mills’s arm, and the mayor leans into her touch, and that part is a heck of a lot less confusing than the part about the mayor telling Mom to leave town. “Hey. I’m not going anywhere until Zelena is gone. That’s what I’m here for. I can handle my–” She pauses, turning toward the doorway with suspicious eyes. “I can handle it,” she says instead, and Henry nearly groans in frustration.

“And after Zelena?” Mayor Mills asks, stirring the rice mixture. 

Mom shakes her head. “You won’t lose anyone you love ever again.” That sounds…surprisingly forthright for Mom, and he’s even further confused when she says, “He’ll be back.” 

_He_. Henry frowns.  _Me_. Mayor Mills…loves him? He knows she  _likes_ him, likes how much she likes him, but Mom says it so firmly that he doesn’t understand it but feels a deep warmth nevertheless. It’s nice to imagine mattering to someone other than Mom, especially someone who’s already fit into a weird space in their family that he’d never really imagined needing filling. Walsh is great for Mom and good to him, but Mayor Mills is  _theirs_ , both of theirs, and she isn’t going to let him go even once they move on. 

“You won’t,” Mayor Mills points out with certainty, and Mom squirms. 

“I don’t know that.” 

“Yes, you do.” Henry thinks about how Mayor Mills had said that Mom is afraid and he doesn’t know why, but yeah. Mom gets scared a lot, even when it’s just of feelings or new things or admitting the truth. 

She heaves a sigh with just her shoulders and she looks kind of small as she admits, “Yeah, I do. But he’ll be back. I swear.” Her hand is still rubbing soothing lines against Mayor Mills’s arm and they both look troubled from this angle, scrunched brows and elbows forward and heads half bowed. 

Mayor Mills moves to take the sauce from the counter in front of Mom and they’re half tangled into each other and speaking very rapidly and stammeringly about the rice by the time Henry realizes that he isn’t going to get anything else from them.  _Fine._ He pulls out, banging his head against the shelf, and pushes the towels back under the shelf as neatly as he can.

There are still a lot of places for him to snoop up here, and maybe get more hints to add to his notebook. He creeps along the hall, peering into doors. Maybe another study, or a secret James Bond-esque laboratory where the mayor is teaching his mom _whatever_  they’re talking about, or…

He opens one door and stares. 

It’s a kid’s room, blue and neatly arranged, and he can see a half-empty closet and a number of gaps on the bookshelf but otherwise, it looks like someone  _lives_ there. Like there’s a kid who could easily be his age who collects comic book issues and plays games on the computer and has way more clocks than anyone needs.

He gapes at the room, stepping inside with trepidation, and he doesn’t understand what this means. He doesn’t know why Mayor Mills is hiding a  _kid_ from him, or why she’d have a room like this at all. His head is spinning and he sits down on the bed unsteadily, struggling to comprehend this and why all he wants to do is lie back on it and close his eyes, when his phone squawks loudly.

Walsh. It’s always Walsh, checking in- now giving him away- and he scampers from the room just as two sets of feet pound against the staircase and Mom and Mayor Mills are hurrying toward him, catching sight of him just as he stands outside the doorway.

“Oh, Henry,” Mayor Mills whispers, and she looks frightened as she approaches him, as though he’s a skittish deer about to charge past her. Mom stands back, a hand pressed to her mouth. 

“You…You said you weren’t a mom,” he manages, and he hates the fact that he feels so betrayed over it, that he can cope with secrets when Mayor Mills only admits that they’re that, that he’d counted on her not to  _lie_ to him. He’s so stupid, so naive, and he’s still running through thoughts in his mind as she wavers, rocking slightly as though she’s already falling from his disappointment. Maybe it’s a nephew’s room…but no, Zelena is her only sister. Maybe she just…keeps a guest room for visitors that happens to have clothing all hung up in the closet. Maybe she…

“I’m not a mom,” Mayor Mills says, and this time he hears something  _more_  in her words like a sob and Mom lets out a muffled sound behind her hand. “But I was.” 

_Oh_. Mayor Mills is trembling like she might break and Henry is the worst person in the world, pushing her to that admission when it looks like it’s going to tear her apart, and he sags back against the doorjamb, furious with himself. She rushes to him, crouching in front of him just a tiny bit so they’re staring into each other’s eyes, and taking his hands. “Oh, no, Henry, don’t look so… I should have told you. I didn’t mean to mislead you. I lost him a year ago and I don’t remember most of…it’s very painful to think about.”

Mom is still staring at them and Mayor Mills’s eyes are so sad and he chokes out, “I’m sorry,” before she’s pulling him into her arms and he doesn’t know why it hurts so much, why it feels like his heart is too tight and small and big all at once and hugging the mayor is like coming home. “I shouldn’t have been looking around. I just wanted to…” 

“You just wanted to know everything,” Mayor Mills says, smiling behind that veil of grief, and now he can feel the love his mom had mentioned bathing him with light and hope and joy, and he’s never known before how acutely he’d been missing it until just now. He tightens his arms around her and looks up for a moment, just long enough to see Mom still standing across the hall, arms stiff and eyes dark with something that isn’t anger, not at all.

But it might be fear, and yearning so acute that he hurts again and doesn’t know why.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**ix. trepidation**

“You’re sure you’ll be okay?” she asks, not for the first time.

  


Regina fixes her with an unimpressed glare. “Emma, I’ve destroyed whole _kingdoms_. I think we can handle an afternoon without you. We’ll see you at dinnertime.” 

  


They haven’t been apart in days, tense and on edge from Zelena’s threats to Henry, but as the days pass silently and their caution wanes, Emma’s been itching to do something different. Something actually _constructive_. 

  


So she’s putting together a crib while Regina and Henry go to Town Hall and supposedly work on the math homework Henry’s been neglecting. _I have the basic skills to help a seventh grader with his homework_ , Regina had sniffed when she’d checked on that, and Henry had rolled his eyes and informed them both that he’s _good_ at math now.

  


Regina’s eyes had lit up like a proud mother and Emma isn’t asking her if she’ll be okay against Zelena, she’s thinking about her son’s other mother who he doesn’t know about, still fragile and too easily bent to his will. Which had been nice back when she’d been set on, say, the destruction of Storybrooke, but now it just seems like another new stress Regina doesn’t need. 

  


But the other woman is proud and like steel when it comes to Henry, faintly possessive even now, so Emma smiles wanly and pats her hand- weird and awkward, like they hadn’t been kissing barely two weeks ago and are still pretending exactly that _hadn’t_ part- and then kind of leaves it there, uncertain, and says, “I know.” 

  


Regina closes her eyes and Emma dares to keep her hand in place against her wrist, sliding it upward ever-so-slightly, and her arm is just as soft and smooth as she remembers, not devoid of muscle tone but not hard from it, either. “Emma,” Regina murmurs, and Emma pulls her hand away, flushing. 

  


“I hate this waiting game,” she says, changing the subject before she can be interrogated as to her intentions. “I want to be on the offensive. I want to make Zelena afraid of us.” 

  


She gets a half-hidden smirk for that bravado, infuriatingly mocking, and she rolls her eyes in return as Regina repeats skeptically, “Make Zelena afraid.” 

  


“You don’t think you can do it?” 

  


Regina settles back against the doorframe to Emma’s room, lips pursed at the challenge. “You’d have to find her first. Still nothing from that house?” 

  


“Hook and David are going to check it out again today. Hopefully not get mortally injured in the process.” If she'd had her way, she’d keep them both at home and do all the heavy lifting with Regina, but they’d looked so hurt at the implication of that that she’d thrown up her hands and told them to go get themselves killed. What’s a Dark One or a witch to two guys with swords, right? She rolls her eyes again.

  


Regina frowns. “Don’t you have the Merry Men on 24-hour guard there?” 

  


She shrugs, tucking her thumbs into her waistband. “Yes, but…we don’t really know them, do we?” Regina’s face is carefully expressionless, and Emma doesn’t know why it bothers her so much that Regina had apparently made such an impression on Robin Hood and hadn’t mentioned it since. It just… _does_. “We don’t know whose side they’re on or what happened during the missing year. For all we know, Little John was always a flying monkey.” She affects a casual tone. “You met Robin around there the other day, right?” 

  


_Bingo_. Regina twitches in place, eyes narrowed like Emma’s attacked her personally, and she says, “A while ago, yes.” She looks guilty, defensive, and what the hell happened there that day? “It was a very brief meeting.” 

  


“Yeah? Who ended it?” 

  


“I did.” 

  


“Who started it?” 

  


“He shot an arrow at my head.” 

  


“That doesn’t seem suspicious to you?” 

  


“Run-of-the-mill, actually.” 

  


“Huh.” She glares at Regina, who’s giving her nothing now, her face wiped clean of discomfort and now smooth and emotionless. “Forget it.” 

  


“Right.” 

  


“Yeah.” 

  


“Mom?” They both look up, and Regina’s mouth is open to respond before Emma seizes her hand again and she clamps it shut. Henry blinks at them, closing his door behind him and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Hey, Mayor Mills.” 

  


“Henry.” Regina’s eyes light up like she’s found the sun in their dingy little hallway, and Emma’s thumb runs circles around her knuckles. There’s so much _love_ around her suddenly, overwhelming and all directed toward the boy they both adore, and seeing them together leaves her with a fullness she can’t describe and an emptiness she doesn’t dare to. “All set for today?” 

  


“Sure.” He heads for the stairs and Emma doesn’t drop Regina’s hand as much as watch it fall from her grasp and wind around Henry’s shoulders, the two of them tossing careless goodbyes back at her as she watches. 

  


There’s a peace to the three of them when they’re together. Regina is all sweet smiles and gentle touches around Henry, even to Emma, and Henry responds to her with an eagerness that she hasn’t seen since _she’d_ first come to town. He doesn’t know she’s his mother but it’s still so apparent when it’s just the two of them and Emma, hovering in the background like she doesn’t know where she belongs.

  


It would be like a nightmarish version of that first year when she’d met them both except that there’s no hostility now, no tug-of-war, just this Regina who smiles at her like she’s a friend and scowls like a child instead of a woman with her future in her hands. And no one is laying claim to anyone and sometimes Regina forgets herself and leans into Emma’s touch and Emma’s magic is strong and easy then, flowing between them until she can almost see it and she’s grinning like an idiot.

  


She rubs at her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. Whatever she thinks about with Regina- whatever that fucking kiss had awakened between them- it’s not the time. She’s just lost Neal, Walsh is still out there, lurking like a bad stomach bug that won’t quit, and there’s Hook trailing behind her and she–

  


She wants to run from the hallway and chase them down, sit cross-legged on the couch in the mayor’s office with Henry and get scolded by Regina, bathe in the silence and ease of time with her family. With her _son_ , she corrects herself, wincing, and heads off to the only other people in town she can call family.

  


Mary Margaret is asleep on the floor when she enters the loft, head tucked in and a couch pillow hugged to her, and Emma crouches down to lay a blanket over her. Which is only partially about hiding her baby bump from view. She looks peaceful like this, more Mary Margaret Blanchard than Snow White, and for a moment Emma can pretend that this is before the curse had been broken, that she’s just…a cast-off kid from the foster system who'd found a new family of friends in Storybrooke. The modern fairytale, no Disney movies necessary.

  


She feels guilty for even thinking it and shoves it away back into the well-sealed part of her mind labeled _Don’t._ It’s like being in foster homes again, shivering on bare beds or getting beaten up by foster brothers and reminding herself at night that she’s lucky just to be there, that she can’t be ungrateful or they’ll send her back. (And they always did, and she’d wondered then if she hadn’t appreciated them enough, if every silent complaint had somehow been given voice through defiant eyes.)

  


Her parents love her. And they _can’t_ send her back anywhere even if they’d want to ( _They don’t, they don’t, they don’t,_ chants the voice in her head, and she knows consciously that it’s true, that they’ve never actively pushed her away from them without reason, and thoughts to the contrary belong behind locked-up doors in her mind, too). She’s the one who’s going this time, back to where she belongs. And now they’re content with that and she’s content with that and she hates these _feelings_ that emerge unbidden every time she’s in this house that was once her home.

  


None of this is their fault, and she knows better than to cling to past resentment. Hell, she’s sharing a son with a woman who’d tried to _poison_ her on one occasion, and that’s going just fine. There’s no point in taking it even more personally when it’s the people who love her most, presumably. 

  


She finds a smile halfway to the box leaning against the wall and turns to Mary Margaret, only to catch a sleepy smile of her own. “Emma.” Mary Margaret sits up, rubbing her eyes.

  


“Hi.” 

  


“You came.” 

  


She nods to the crib. “Someone’s got to put it together, right?” David had offered to do it with her, but then Hook had arrived with his seductive-to-someone talk about taking on Zelena and digging out her secrets. She hadn’t been tempted, but David had lit up at the idea of it. “I said I’d come by today.” 

  


“I know, but you’ve been so wrapped up with Zelena and Henry…” Her face splits into a warm smile and Emma’s chest hurts from it. “I’m glad you’re here.” 

  


She smiles back, and she really does mean it. “So am I.” 

  


She digs out the pieces of the crib as Snow settles back down onto the couch. Her vague memories of Henry’s crib had been a standard, simple one, five pieces to be screwed in to be walls and a bottom. This is…a monstrosity. Is every single bar packaged individually? She’s beginning to reconsider her determination to build this thing. “Maybe I should wait for David.” 

  


“If you think you can’t handle it,” Mary Margaret teases, and she growls in response and crouches down again. 

  


“ _Never mind_.” 

  


Mary Margaret laughs. “You’re just like him, you know. Everything he’d dreamed of.” She grows wistful and Emma’s heart is hammering against her ribs. She doesn’t want to have this conversation now. Or ever, actually. They’d done this in the Enchanted Forest just after the curse had broken and she’s supposed to be over it, she _is_ over it, except that now she’d rather another cruel talk with Walsh than a well-meaning one with Mary Margaret. “I thought I’d go with you, but David…he knew he wouldn’t be there for you.” Mary Margaret shakes her head. “There was never going to be a little curly-haired Emma toddling after him with a toy sword or running off on missions to save the kingdom with the two of us. We’re so proud of what you’ve become without us, you know that, right?” 

  


“Right,” Emma chokes out, and wafts of blue drift across the crib pieces like stardust. 

  


“I only hope we can do the same with your baby brother or sister.” Mary Margaret pats her stomach, soft-eyed again.

  


She manages a grin. “Well, you can try putting him in the closet and bidding him bon voyage, but that doesn’t always work out as great as it did for me.”

  


If Mary Margaret senses any tension from that, she doesn’t react to it. “I still can’t believe this is happening,” she says. “A new baby, one I’m going to get to _keep_. To do all everything I never got to with you.” Emma’s skin feels gritty and too large, like she could just peel it off and there’d be raw muscle and bone and no human under the surface. A crib slat quivers in front of her.

  


“I’m happy for you.” She is, sometimes, when she remembers to breathe and see beyond her own self-absorbed stupidity. Because she’s an adult and no matter how much Mary Margaret tries to tell her otherwise, she _isn’t_ what they’d wanted. Maybe David had expected her like this once they’d found out about the curse, but not Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret wants to be a _mom,_ just like Emma herself had craved for so long, to have a tiny baby to raise and look at her with eyes that don’t see shadows where their mother should be. She doesn’t want an overgrown thirty-something with abandonment issues, she wants little curly-haired baby princesses who can never disappoint her. And Mary Margaret somehow always does get what she wants, eventually.

  


“Do you think we could take back your mobile from Gold’s shop?” Mary Margaret muses. There’s a sound like cracking wood in Emma’s head and she rubs at her temples. 

  


Wait. Not in her head. She jumps back, noticing for the first time that there’s blue _everywhere_ , magic swirling around at her hands and into the pieces of the crib and spreading out through the room. “Mary Margaret? Do you see that?” 

  


“See what?” her mother asks, blinking at her, and then she meets her eyes and the magic goes _wild_. It’s whirling around the room, picking up speed in an instant and moving faster and faster until the crib pieces are rising, caught in magnetic energy as Mary Margaret’s mouth falls open. “Is that _magic_ , Emma?” 

  


And the protection spell isn’t supposed to let her  _do_ this, it’s supposed to protect from magic except maybe not hers because Regina had thought it’d be a good idea for her to help cast it. And she’s unstable, wavering, and there’s blue and white all around her, sucking in cups from the kitchen counter and a book from the coffee table all racing around like they’re caught in a tornado. “I don’t know how to stop it!” she shouts over a rising hum, feeling frantic terror rising within her. It’s been her greatest fear since her magic had started acting out, out of control and nothing she can do to focus is _enough_.

  


The magic moves outward in larger and larger circles, lifting up the armchair before Emma can stop it, the coffee table following. And Mary Margaret is right in its path and she can’t _move_ , neither of them can move, and the magic surges around and into and then right out of Emma and she still can’t do a thing. “Emma! _Emma!_ ”

  


The shouts are getting louder, the magic crackling and whooshing and the pieces of the crib are smashing into each other. Emma drops to the floor, shoves her hands against her skin and each other and crouches into a ball and nothing. There’s nothing. She can’t stop this _thing_ coming out of her and she closes her eyes and tries to filter out Mary Margaret’s screams and focus. _Think of who you want to protect. Stop dwelling on your fears._

  


“That’s gonna be a hell of a job,” she mutters. Currently, her fear is accidentally killing her mother. _Regina. Regina can stop this._

  


She fumbles for her phone and Mary Margaret cries out again, “Emma!” as it flies away into the macabre glowing circle she’s bordering. “Emma, do something!” 

  


“I’m trying!” She can’t think, can’t focus, and Mary Margaret’s cries are beginning to grate at her. She doesn’t need reminder after reminder of what might have set her off, what might have– 

  


“The baby!” Mary Margaret’s tone is strident and Emma looks up, catches sight of her mother holding onto her stomach and hears the half-drowned out sobbing and suddenly all she can think is a spiteful little _You can always just replace this one if it doesn’t work out, too._

  


She chokes on her breath, horrified at the thought, and the magic buzzes like a swarm of bees in her ears and under her skin and inside her blood. And then she feels it, the thing that’s powering this magic under the surface. _Resentment. Frustration._ It’s all there, stronger than accidental blasts of magic or unintentional attacks, as powerful and sustained as it had felt when she’d struck at King George.

  


As _vindicated_ , watching Mary Margaret crying and afraid, and she trembles under her own bitterness, her own desire to lash out and hurt. And for an instant, she lets herself wonder if this really is accidental  and her entire world crashes, crashes, and she’s bare and exposed before herself, every nasty thought and desire there for her to see.

  


She knows then without question that she’d meant for this somewhere deep down, that there’s an awful little place within her that wants to hurt as she’s been hurt and just make her mother _stop_. And now…slowly, suddenly, like it’s barely begun and it’s already done, she finds the place where the magic is surging from and seizes control of it, divorces herself from all the emotions that she’s spent her whole life tamping down, and it’s suddenly so easy to hold up her hands and change the flow of the energy, to see how it works and how it’s coming from her.

  


And it’s weakening now the less she _feels_ , the energy racing around the room slowing, and new frustration builds in her at the unfairness of it. She has this, finally. It’s _hers_ and she doesn’t think she’s afraid anymore, not when it feels so easily to touch it and maneuver it like the tool it is, and she can’t let it go now. She’s so close–

  


She closes her eyes again and surrenders to the emotions that had powered her magic all along, thinks of lonely nights dreaming of her parents arriving and whisking her away from a loveless childhood. Thinks of her parents, so quick to surrender her to whatever new destiny each curse brings and _have faith_ that she’ll suffer happily through it all. Thinks of standing in the Echo Cave and hearing Mary Margaret sing her praises and wait for the moment she’d be told that none of it is enough. Thinks of David and Mary Margaret happily raising new children in another realm because family for them is just the two of them and she’s their afterthought. 

  


Thinks about how _fucking Hook_ had managed to get back to this world to slip her a potion, about how her parents had returned to Storybrooke and made no effort to find her again. She isn’t what they’d wanted, too old and too damaged and not good enough for Snow White’s fairytale existence, and for that they’d lose her and begin work on replacing her barely months later.

  


She lets a dozen emotions, rational and irrational both, take hold of her, and she’s seeing more clearly again in an instant, reclaiming the power that had been slipping away. And she feels free in a way she’s never allowed herself to be before, dozens of years of rancor toward imaginary parents springing to life and blossoming within her, terror and anger and self-hatred all spinning through her until it’s the easiest thing in the world to flick her hand like she’s Regina and suddenly the chair is back in its place, a china teacup is whole on the counter, the crib is fully constructed, and Mary Margaret is seated on the couch, breathing hard.

  


And only then, seeing her mother bent over and gasping with sobs still, does it occur to her what she’s just done. 

  


New terror ruptures within her and she’s frozen in place, her heart beating so quickly that she thinks it might spontaneously combust, and there’s a weight that settles around her that feels like _too much._  A thousand blasts that rip into her, tearing her apart and setting the pieces on fire. And she’s everywhere at once, drowning in depths she’s never dared scale before, and why does she feel so deeply, how can she function when all she is is fury and fear? 

  


She can’t be this person. It’s going to swallow her alive. This whole town is going to swallow her alive. And Mary Margaret ventures, “Emma?” and then there’s blue smoke all around her and she’s gone.

  


She moves as though she’s in a dream, and she can’t remember anything from the next few hours but blinding terror and motion that ranges from stilted to frantic. She paws at clothes and opens drawers and fills suitcases and all she knows is that it’s too much, there’s too much here and it’s going to destroy her if she remains. _She’s_ going to destroy everyone she loves if she remains.

  


She makes one stop along the way before she’s swerving around corners and running stop signs, and she hurtles down the path to Regina’s mansion before she remembers that Henry might not even be there.

  


But he is, and Regina and Henry both do a double-take from their spots at the dinner table when she bursts into the room.

  


“Mom?” Henry says, eyes wide as he takes in her disheveled state. “Are you okay?”

  


She stops moving for the first time since she’d left the loft, breathing hard and staring at them, and she squeezes her hand around the item in her pocket and announces, “We’re leaving. All three of us. We’re getting the fuck out of town.” 

  


And it’s the first thing she’s said in days that feels right.

  


* * *

  


**x. frustration**   


Henry had been expecting the announcement that it was time to leave for days, maybe even weeks. They’ve been jumping from city to city his whole life, but rarely when they settle down do they leave again until it’s time to leave for good. There are no relatives to visit, no job to keep down, just the two of them squatting in whatever new apartment they get until Mom decides that it’s time to move. 

  


And Storybrooke is an anomaly, a visit that’s been going on for nearly a month now, and Mom had been saying _Just a few more days, we’ll go back soon_ , until one day this week she’d stopped. And he’d stopped expecting it quite so much, and started instead asking Mayor Mills and David about the school here and that open sheriff job that David seems all too willing to pass to Mom.

  


So he’s taken aback by Mom’s proclamation and it’s Mayor Mills who says, “What are you talking about?"

  


“Here. I got this from Gold’s shop.” Mom holds up a little bottle. “And…you need this, right?” She grabs Henry's scarf from where it’s draped over a chair and puts it around Mayor Mills’s neck. “Now you can come with us.” 

  


Mayor Mills is still staring at her, angry like she isn’t quite sure why, and she puts a hand on the scarf. “What if I don’t want to?” 

  


“Regina.” Mom is weird now, buzzing with so much energy that it takes her a few moments to keep going. She’d run into the house like it had been on fire- or _she’d_ been on fire, maybe- and she’s still breathing too fast and other hand is fisted against her jacket and the words come out like a plea. “You don’t want to be here. Storybrooke has been terrible to you.” She lowers her voice, and Henry leans back, affecting boredom as he takes in every confusing word. “Haven’t you sacrificed yourself enough for them? You don’t owe them anything anymore. We could be–“ She breaks off whatever she’d been going to say and then says instead, equally urgently, “Happy. _Safe_.” 

  


Mayor Mills looks down at Mom’s free hand, holds it up and stares at it as though there’s something under the surface that Henry can’t see. “What did you do, Emma?” 

  


Mom shakes her head. “Nothing. I swear, nothing yet. Regina, please. There’s no–“ She stops, catches Henry’s eye. “There’s none of _this_ out there.” She wiggles her hand in Regina’s. “Zelena’s after you now, not this town. And if she follows us, I’ll put a bullet through her skull.”

  


She rocks back and forth in her boots, still on edge but whatever energy there’d been dying down, and Mayor Mills says, “All right.” 

  


“Mother Superior is still here to take care of–“ Mom stops mid-argument. “What?” 

  


“Yes. Okay. Do you really need this spelled out?” But Mayor Mills doesn’t sound annoyed as much as she does uncomfortable, tense as Mom tightens her hand in hers and turns to Henry. “I’ll come with you.” 

  


“Okay,” Mom says, and her shoulders fall as though the mayor has taken a load off them. “That’s, um. Okay.” She sits in front of the empty plate at the table and Henry can’t stop staring at her, at Mayor Mills as she murmurs something about packing and vanishes up the stairs, at this room he’s spent so much time in that it’s starting to feel like home.

  


“We’re leaving?” 

  


Mom smiles at him, her eyes dark but her lips stretched across her face. “Isn’t it time we got back home?” 

  


He shrugs and twists his fork in his chili and he doesn’t know what to say except _this could be home, this feels more like home_ and that’s ridiculous. They’ve spent a year in New York and three weeks in Storybrooke and he doesn’t know why leaving makes him want to cry but somehow it does, somehow it feels like taking a piece of himself away when they go. “I kind of like it here.” There are mysteries and shadowy villains but there’s also a diner he likes and the docks are always open and there’s this cool playground at the edge of the woods where he’s wistfully watched kids his age hanging out together. 

  


And Mom has _people_ here who’ve taken them in, friends who feel a lot more like family and Mayor Mills who’s begun to feel more like theirs than any apartment they’ve ever been in. Mayor Mills who’s going to uproot herself and run off with them when this town is all they’ve been searching for for years. “Couldn’t we stay here instead?” he says, and Mom’s face goes pale and strained. 

  


“You have school in New York, kid. Friends. No evil murderers out to hurt you.” 

  


“School won’t change here,” he points out. “And friends are…” He has vague memories of struggling to make new friends everywhere they’ve been, never quite connecting to people, just like his mother. His New York friends had felt more real than any of the others. And yet. “I could make new friends. Jesse and Rico are idiots anyway. I don’t think we could…” He hesitates. “Doesn’t it feel like family here?” He’s never had roots before, and he thinks he must have craved them for longer than he can remember, to find a place where he belongs outside of just the two of them. 

  


But Mom looks absolutely _devastated_ now, forlorn and defeated with just the question. “I thought we were a family.” 

  


“We are,” he hurries to assure her. “We’re just…doesn’t it seem like something’s missing?” It’s felt like that for the last year, since they’d left Boston after the fire. And it doesn’t feel like that here. Not with Mary Margaret and David, as boring and small town as they get. Not with Ruby or Killian or Archie or even at that school that he doesn’t know how he’d found. And never in the mayoral mansion, tucked under Mayor Mills’s arm.  _Home_ feels like it could be this place, these people, and bringing the mayor with them just feels like taking another person away from home, too. 

  


“Regina’s going to–“ 

  


“Because _you_ want to leave.” Mayor Mills, he’s pretty sure, would follow them to the end of the Earth if they asked her to. “Why do we always have to run?” 

  


_What did you do, Emma?_ Mayor Mills had asked, and he knows that Mom had done _something_ , enough to spook her like it had that time she’d gone out a few times with a man who’d wound up being married. Mom had woken him up with all their bags packed and they’d left town that night in another rush, and she still doesn’t know that he knows about that. “I’m tired of running, Mom. I don’t want to run away from here, too.” 

  


“We’re running from a psychopathic murderer, Henry!” But Mom isn’t meeting his eyes and he knows she’s lying to both of them. “You don’t want to need a chaperone every day for the rest of your life, do you?” 

  


He rolls his eyes at that insistence. “You always beat the bad guys.” She used to tell him it all the time, back before they came here and her smile got heavier, like it meant more but hurt more all the same. 

  


“I don’t want us to spend our lives having to beat bad guys.” Mom takes his hands in hers, and she’s blinking hard and he suddenly feels like crying too from the despair that permeates the air, Mom’s fear of things she won’t name so acute that he holds on tight. “I don’t want to be that person anymore, sweetheart. We don’t need to be heroes.” 

  


She remains resolute, and he can see in her face that this is it. That she isn’t going to change her mind this time, that they’re going to run away from people who love them and bring Mayor Mills into this messy, lonely existence. “You’re not a hero,” he says, bitterness overpowering his mother’s fear. He’d thought they didn’t believe in heroes, had joked about it with Mayor Mills just days ago. “A hero wouldn’t run away all the time.” 

  


Mom jerks away from him as though she’s been slapped and he doesn’t _care_ , he doesn’t want to worry about being sensitive and understanding when she’s hurting them both. “Fine. Fine, Henry, I’m not a hero. What am I doing here, then? How the hell do I belong here?” 

  


He stares at her, confused again, and Mayor Mills says from behind them, “Henry doesn’t want to go.” She sounds dazed, disbelieving, and Mom looks from one of them to the other as the firmness fades from her face.

  


He shakes his head and Mom sags in her seat, defeated with just his motion. “Yeah. Henry thinks it feels like family here.”

  


“I see.” And Henry doesn’t understand her tone or why Mom’s fists are clenching and unclenching again and she isn’t looking at either of them, but Mayor Mills clears her throat and says, “Why don’t you bring your bags inside? We can revisit this in the morning.” 

  


Mom gets up without another word and leaves for the car, and Henry stays inside, pushing his cauliflower into his chili in sullen silence. “She does this every time we find a place we love.” 

  


Mayor Mills takes Mom’s seat, twisting her fingers around each other and spearing a piece of cauliflower of her own into the chili and eating it. Henry tries his. It’s a weird combination but it tastes so familiar that he’s sure he’s had it before and forgotten how good it is. “Emma has spent much of her life being let down by the people in places where she’s thought she’d belong.” 

  


“Well, yeah, if she doesn’t give them a chance.” But he remembers the dad that Mom is now calling a hero but hadn’t until this town, until suddenly here she has friends and history and maybe his dad did, too. And he turns to glare at Mayor Mills. “And you’re letting her! I thought you cared about us.”

  


Mayor Mills looks stricken. “I do, Henry. More than anything. How can you doubt that?” 

  


“How can you just drop everything and follow her?” He’s angry now, even with the reassurance that Mayor Mills isn’t going to run off if he doesn’t want them to. He’s lost and confused and so furious and Mom didn’t even give up because of what he wanted, Mom put running before a family, and no one even has the decency to explain to him why. “There are important things here! There are people who are counting on you and you were just going to run away too.” 

  


“Because I care about you. And this town is dangerous for _you_.” Mayor Mills wipes at his chin with a napkin, and it’s so motherly that he wants to cry. He’s twelve years old and he’s found someone he’s never known that he’s needed until now, and she’s just like Mom. She’s hiding things and running and she’s the best part about running this time, but it’s all wrong for all of them. 

  


“Because of Zelena?” Mom had thought that Zelena would follow them anyway, and she didn’t sound scared about it anymore. 

  


But Mayor Mills whispers, “Not Zelena,” and he’s startled into silence. And then there’s the sound of Mom heaving in their luggage and Mayor Mills looks even more pensive and he doesn’t _understand_ , more secrets and more lies and so much left unsaid to him. “Why don’t I get you settled upstairs? It’s getting late.” 

  


“It’s seven o’clock,” he says dumbly, but he follows Mayor Mills out into the foyer and up the stairs, Mom behind them with his suitcase and backpack. 

  


He’s surprised when Mayor Mills nods toward the room he’d discovered earlier in the week but it’s Mom who says, “Are you sure that’s wise?” 

  


“It’s just another guest room now,” Mayor Mills murmurs, and now he sees that there are even more books gone from the shelves, a stack of photo albums he’d spotted last time gone as well, and a few other bare spots on the wall. “Make yourself at home.” 

  


He digs through his suitcase under two sets of watchful eyes until he finds a pair of pajamas and his PSP, and he dumps the former on the bed and buries himself in the latter until he hears the door click closed, retreating footsteps, and Mom and Mayor Mills talking in low voices. 

  


They’re careless this time. They don’t even leave the foyer before they begin discussing him. “If he doesn’t want to go, we’re not going,” Mayor Mills is insisting. “I will not uproot him again because you’re having control issues!” 

  


“Control issues?” Mom snaps back. She lowers her voice and Henry leans closer to the wall beside the stairs, ears straining. “I sent my mother into some creepy crib tornado today! And it felt…” Her voice trails off and she looks suddenly horrified, and Mayor Mills’s eyebrows shoot up. “I don’t want to talk about how it felt.”

  


Wait. _Mother?_ Henry gapes down at them, eyes wide. _Mother?_ Is this some weird code word that they’re using, because Mom doesn’t have parents. Mom has never had parents, unless his whole life has been some huge lie that no one will explain to him.

  


He clings to the wall in disbelieving fascination, but Mayor Mills doesn’t pick up on the word or comment on it, just dives into the equally enigmatic _crib tornado_ comment. “You’re allowed to feel some hostility toward her, you know. If you keep pretending you don’t, it’s all going to explode like that again and again until it’s finally something you both can’t ignore.” 

  


“I’m not ignoring! I’m trying to get the fuck out of here!” Mom hisses. “That’s the answer to this. The three of us anywhere but here.” She slumps against the little table by the wall, palms pressed to it as Mayor Mills moves closer. “I don’t know why we can’t have that.” 

  


“Because Henry’s right. Running away from your problems is just as potent as ignoring them.” Mayor Mills slides her thumb along the space between Mom’s forehead and her ear, brushing stray hair to the side. “Whether or not you have something else powering you at the time.” 

  


Mom shakes her head. “You don’t really think that.”

  


“I think I once spent the bulk of a decade letting myself fester in bitterness and hatred,” Mayor Mills says, and Mom’s eyes close like she doesn’t want to hear it. Mayor Mills’s voice softens. “You aren’t me. We don’t know how you’d react to it. But I don’t want to see you build yourself a prison of darkness like I did.” 

  


Mom laughs, wet and hoarse. “Isn’t it too late for that?”

  


“Oh, please. Don’t oversell yourself like that.” But the mayor is still stroking Mom’s hair, soft and gentle even as her tone is biting, and Mom leans into her touch. And Henry doesn’t know how Mom had done this until now, how she must have hurt so much and been hiding all these things from him and had never folded like this. Mom is _strong_ , the strongest person he knows, and not just because she does a lot of chin-ups. And he can’t imagine her like this with Walsh, quiet and scared of demons she won’t tell him about. “You’re hardly an evil queen,” Mayor Mills sniffs. “Maybe a vaguely malicious peasant.” 

  


Mom juts out her jaw. “Princess,” she says, and laughs helplessly as her hands move to rest on Mayor Mills’s hips. “I wanted to…I don’t want us to be any of that anymore. I thought we might…we might be a family, the three of us.” 

  


“You thought that,” Mayor Mills breathes, and Mom’s eyes are still shut and the other woman presses her lips to her forehead, very carefully. Then another set of gentle kisses to Mom’s eyelids. She traces a path to one cheek with gentle fingers before she replaces them with her lips, then the other, and finally she settles on Mom’s lips so sweetly that Henry forgets to be grossed out for a long minute. 

  


Mayor Mills pulls away and now Mom’s eyes are open and they’re both gazing at each other with solemn eyes. And Mom says, “I should…I didn’t eat dinner yet.”

  


“I left it on the stove for you,” Mayor Mills murmurs, and they’re moving back toward each other with more focused kissing an instant later. Then there are little sighs and Mom is pulling the mayor closer and Henry nearly trips in his hurry to slip back into his room.

  


He closes the door carefully and flops back down on the bed, reaching for his PSP where he’d stuck it under the pillow, habit from staying at a B&B where doors are rarely locked. And his knuckles brush against something hard just under the PSP, something he’s sure hadn’t been there when he’d put it there. 

  


He pulls it out. It’s a large, thick book, old-fashioned and worn and embossed with the words _Once Upon a Time_ across the front of it. 

  


And when he opens it, brow creasing, he sees writing across the inside cover, just under the  _This book is the property of:_ stamp. 

  


_Henry Mills_ , it says, and it’s written in his handwriting. 

  


He jerks back, throws the book nearly across the bed with wide eyes, and then looks around quickly to see if anyone’s watching him. If this is some creepy trick that Zelena or even Mom is doing on him. But there’s no one, the house is still quiet, and the window is closed. Maybe he’d read it wrong.

  


But when he retrieves the book and opens it gingerly, there’s the same text again, still in his handwriting. 

  


He digs through his backpack and writes the same words, _Henry Mills_ , across a page of his notebook. And again. And again. _Henry Mills. Henry Mills. Henry Mills. HENRY MILLS._ They all match the writing perfectly, and he seizes the book, heart pounding, and none of this makes sense. None of this is possible.

  


It’s a trick, just like Mom talking about having a mother and that thing that Mayor Mills is afraid enough of that she’d been willing to leave town. It’s got to be some weird code, something to fool Zelena and make her think that he isn’t who she wants. It’s _got_ to be.

  


The alternative doesn’t make sense, nothing about this town makes sense, and he’s angry and scared and they can’t leave town and not _explain_ all of this to him. They’re going to run in the morning, Mom will get her way like she always does, and Henry can’t stop them from taking him away from this place.

  


He doesn’t trust either of them anymore, not when Mayor Mills is hiding things too and this house doesn’t feel like home when there are things here that are _impossible_. When he’s still adrift and no one is pulling him back to shore with anything that connects here. There are no answers and for the first time, he understands where Mom is coming from when she wants to run.

  


Maybe that’s genetic, in the end, for all his fury at her for falling into old patterns again. Maybe he’s just a runner like her when he’s so distinctly unsettled by a world that isn’t working the way it should.

  


Except it isn’t Storybrooke he wants to run from, it’s lies and deceptions and danger he doesn’t even know well enough to avoid. He wants to…he wants to get away from all of them, and he has no idea who there is in the entire universe he can count on. Not Mom. Not Mayor Mills or anyone in this town. 

  


_No_. There’s one person out there who he can count on, someone with a car who’s told him time after time that he’s still there for Henry if Henry just gives him a call. He dials the number with trembling fingers. “Hey.” 

  


Walsh picks up immediately. “Henry. Is everything okay?” 

  


“N-no. No, it isn’t.” His voice catches on the first word and he flushes, annoyed with himself. “Listen, I’m in Storybrooke. Maine. Can you come get me?” 

  


Walsh doesn’t ask any questions, and Henry’s grateful for it in that moment. (He doesn’t even think to be suspicious until much later, when they’re in the car and driving deeper into town, when a redheaded woman seizes him and calls herself Auntie Zelena. And by then they’re all screwed.) “I’m about an hour away from Maine,” he says after a brief pause. “I should be there at about nine.”

  


“There’s a bus depot near the road in.” Henry recalls it from the drive in, late at night on his way to a strange town that feels homey from the start. “I’ll meet you there.” 

  


He lies in the bed and it’s more comfortable than any he’s ever been in, more familiar than even his bed at home, and he trembles and doesn’t understand and trembles some more in the dark. Mom looks in on him once and he pretends to be asleep; she speaks in low tones to Mayor Mills and they agree to go downstairs and “do some training.” He doesn’t follow them, for once.

  


And at eight forty-five, he slings his backpack over his shoulder and climbs out the window and down the tree beside it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double dose of Regina ficlets, it's been a while. :) 
> 
> Please be warned that there's some violence in this chapter- and specifically, there is some (magical) violence between Emma and Regina. I'm out of time rn so I'm just going to post the chapter now, but I'll respond to feedback later. Thank you so much for all your comments! They are wonderful to read and are both thought-provoking and motivating. :)

**xi. elimination**

She has Emma backed against the china closet in the dining room and she’s kissing her, Emma’s fingers teasing at the skin of her waist and little flashes of magic turning her stomach in wholly unexpected ways as she does. “How’s this?” Emma whispers, rotating her fingers, and the magic pulls lower.

 

She gasps out a half response and pulls Emma up, propping her against the side of the china closet, and Emma’s legs hike up her dress as she wraps them around her. Another spurt of magic, now much more focused. “I’m going to destroy you,” she manages through gritted teeth.

 

“I thought you’d appreciate–“ Emma sinks blunt teeth into her shoulder. “–my extracurricular work.” 

 

“If you think I’m going to cater to some cheap student/teacher fantasy, Miss Swan…” She gets a very loud moan in response to that and smirks, spreading her hand across Emma’s abdomen and letting her own magic take hold, winding tendrils directly toward Emma’s core, tugging hard and feeling blood surge to her energy in response. Emma lets out a very un-Emma-like yelp and crashes forward, the two of them landing in a tangle of limbs with a chair on top of them. 

 

Regina rubs at her back where it had hit the chair and Emma winces. “Sorry about that.” She’s still squirming, but the hunger has faded from her eyes and has been replaced with the same weight that had been in them until Regina had kissed her.

 

She casts her own eyes downward, suddenly embarrassed. She doesn’t know what had possessed her to kiss Emma in the first place except that she’d known Emma had  _needed_ it in that moment, needed grounding that Regina had been desperate to give to her. 

 

And maybe she’d wanted it, too, but she doesn’t dare have that discussion with herself just yet. There’s too much going on to worry about _kissing_. “We should work out what’s going on with your magic,” she says, as smoothly as she can. “What happened earlier that had you so spooked?” Emma had mentioned a crib tornado and now every worst case scenario is flashing through her mind, each one more horrific than the last.

 

“Are we really doing this?” Emma blurts out in response, and there’s still denim pressed against her leg and they’re still on the floor and Regina knows that Emma isn’t talking about magic right now.

 

She stands up, tugging her dress back down where it belongs, and Emma holds her arms tight around herself when she rises, her eyes turning flinty hard with every moment Regina hesitates. It’s something they’ve been dancing around for weeks now (maybe years, maybe longer, maybe since the moment Emma had arrived at her door with their son under her hand) and it’s terrifying to contemplate it. “We’re not playing out any more of your fantasies,” she says instead, lip curling with what really shouldn’t be amusement.

 

Emma catches it anyway, and she rolls her eyes in response, the new hostility fading away. “Really? Because I have this one where we get some of your old Evil Queen dresses from your mausoleum and…” She stops, drawling out, “Well. You said no more fantasies.” 

 

Regina does not gulp. It would take a lot more than Emma’s clumsy seduction to make her… She swallows hard and turns away from Emma’s dancing eyes. “Magic, Emma. What happened at the apartment?” 

 

Emma avoids her gaze and  _damn it all_ , she’s found something that Emma is more afraid of discussing than their romantic life. “Hook is going to be so devast– Hey, wait. This isn’t some vengeance rivalry thing with Hook, is it?” 

 

She takes the bait, immediately sour. “No, you idiot. Hook isn’t worth that inconvenience.” 

 

“Inconvenience.” Emma slides her fingers down Regina’s arm, watching goosebumps break out at her touch. “So wait, you just like me for me.” She wiggles her eyebrows and smiles with just her eyes and  _oh,_ it’s enough to twist something inside Regina that longs for  _everything_ , things she doesn’t dare believe in anymore.

 

She sighs heavily and retorts, “Well, it’s definitely not for your abysmal flirting,” and Emma’s lips quirk in response. “Or your inability to distract me. What happened earlier?” 

 

Emma sits on the chair they’d knocked over before, flipping it back up and sliding one leg under her body. “I was ready to ask you to run away with me and now you want to talk details?”

 

“I wanted to talk details then, too,” Regina points out. She wants…she doesn’t want to talk details. She wants this whole situation to disappear, for Emma to be back to the Emma she’d been before Neal’s death had sent her spiraling. Emma under control, Emma who supports her when she can barely stand with the heaviness of loss of Henry, Emma who she doesn’t have to worry might snap at any moment and take with her all they’ve managed to claw for together.

 

She wants to be in the front seat of Emma’s atrocious death trap right now, driving out of town with the potential of _family_ , of light and happiness and none of the weight that all of them carry around with them now. She hadn't known how intensely she’d craved it until Emma had ducked her head in front of her and needed someone to understand and this is who they could have been after Neverland, without curses that steal away children and saviors and change everything.

 

She closes her eyes, lets selfish, childish desires for simplicity (she hasn’t craved simplicity since _Daniel_ , oh gods, what is happening with Emma now) fade away in favor of focusing on the topic at hand. “Something went wrong with your crib building?” 

 

“It doesn’t matter.” Except it  _does_ , quite clearly, and that’s evident all over Emma’s face. “There’s just…there’s all this magic in me and it feels like it’s all going to explode out of me if I don’t stop it. And I don’t know what I’ll do when that happens.” 

 

And  _this_ is familiar. Familiar like mirrors and mothers and wedding days, and Regina feels a thrill of dread pass through her. “Snow was pushing you,” she guesses. “And you pushed back. How did it feel?” 

 

Emma stares at the china closet, lips pressed together and chin set. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

 

“How did it feel, Emma?” she persists. She’d been young and afraid and corruptible when Rumple had started on her, and she’d made an easy target. Emma is…older, already weathered and worn by a world that doesn’t subscribe to simple notions of good and evil, and there’s no way that she… 

 

“It felt bad enough to want to get out of here, okay?” Emma snaps, and Regina’s quiet fear is mirrored on her face in swathes of desperation and horror that she can’t quite hide from Regina. “That’s it.”

 

And Regina sees a second reflection on her face, a new story of  _because I loved it_ and another tale of a daughter afraid of both her power and how good it feels. And Snow is no Cora but just as potent for Emma, just as dangerous to what happens next. She should have run, have fled the castle and never returned until the king’s men had brought her back with only her head. She should have fled before she’d fallen.

 

Emma will  _not_ fall. Emma will  _never_ become her. She rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand and says, “I’m going to check on Henry. We can talk about leaving after.” 

 

She nearly runs up the stairs, Emma trailing behind her. “Now you want to leave?” 

 

“I want  _you_ to leave.” She turns around and sees Emma behind her, jaw working like she’s trying to hold back a response, and this had been  _so_  much easier when they’d been kissing. 

 

“So, what, you’re going to keep Henry here and send me away before I screw up anything else?” Emma’s eyes are defiant, raring for a fight, but Regina is alarmed at the defeat she can already see in her eyes. Emma  _would_ leave, would leave Henry behind and go in this moment if Regina had ordered her to. 

 

She’s spent years waiting for this moment and now all she can say is, “Didn’t we just talk about this? We go together.” Her heart had stopped at Emma’s announcement and she might’ve kissed her then, for the promise of family as it should be, and now she can’t imagine this going any other way.

 

“Regina…” She can hear the gentle surprise in Emma’s murmur, a confirmation in just the pronouncement of her name. Of what, they don’t know yet, but there’s something thrumming within her like promises of happy endings and a future that seems only natural now. And Regina wonders if she could dare dream of a world past two missed chances that’s the only one she can imagine now. “…Is Henry’s window open?” Emma finishes, suddenly abrupt, and Regina notices just then the sound of the wind whipping at the shades in Henry’s room.

 

 _Oh, no. Oh, no._ They throw open the door, racing into the room as one, and come to a halt in front of the bed. “He ran,” Emma whispers. 

 

“He always runs,” Regina says grimly. She remembers the wildness of the last time he’d been in danger, of shouting at Emma in a cave in Neverland as the other woman had listened in silence, and there’s no reason to shout now. Henry is everything to both of them now, and she forces down the desperation that threatens to bubble up and finds determination instead.

 

“When he’s being lied to.” They stare at each other and Emma’s face twists first, her teeth clamping over her lip. “You had no choice,” Regina offers, and she’d kept enough from him this time, too. No one is blameless in this situation (Henry perhaps least of all, she concedes with a grimace).

 

“There’s always a choice,” Emma mutters, sitting down on the bed. Regina’s about to snap at her that Henry’s  _gone_ and now isn’t the time to be settling down, but then she sees what Emma’s leafing through. “And look what found him to give him another one.” 

 

“The book.” There it is, mocking them with its presence as it had her so long. “He saw something in it that made him leave.” She reaches for the pajamas on his bed, closing her eyes and calling forth her magic.

 

“What are you– Oh.” Emma blinks at the yellow lines that extend from it, through the room and out the window to the street.

 

“Locator spell,” she explains, transporting them down to the street with a puff of smoke. 

 

She moves to her car, Emma climbing into the passenger seat and rolling down the window so she can watch the lines properly. “Yellow brick road?” 

 

She twists to glare at Emma. “Are you really cracking jokeswhen our son is missing?” 

 

“No, I…” And then she notices the strain on Emma’s face. Emma excels at hiding away from inconvenient truths, compartmentalizing pain when there’s work to be done, and now she’s struggling more than she ever has before. “I thought that might be a sign that Zelena had gotten to him.” She holds a hand up to her heart, fisting it into her shirt, and she seems so fragile and afraid in this moment that Regina feels a surge of maternal instinct in response, a desire to look after Emma when no one else seems to.

 

She reaches out to touch Emma’s hand, sliding her fingers into her fist as she drives with the other hand and gently prying the hand loose. “We’ll find him.” The car swerves but Regina keeps control, following the path closer and closer to the edge of town. 

 

“He should never have been in danger again.” Emma’s hand untangles from hers and she hangs onto the seat, jaw clenched. “We shouldn’t be going through this.  _Again_.” 

 

The lines grow brighter and deeper at the bus stop just before the road to the town line, and Regina frowns. “He was here. For a while.” 

 

“But there are no busses out of town.” Emma frowns. “He had to walk for over an hour just to get to me back in Boston.” 

 

“Maybe he gave up and went back.” She can make out lines, fainter and pale against the dark street, moving back toward town. They arc off to the left, the least occupied area in town just outside the woods, and then they fade in the distance. “Henry doesn’t give up,” she amends, her heart clenching and unclenching with the thought of him. 

 

“No. And if he wanted to leave, he’d have a plan in place or he would’ve probably stolen one of our cars.” 

 

“He’s  _twelve_!” 

 

Emma squints at her. “Didn’t he once try blowing up magic with a stick of dynamite? Have you met our son?” She bites her lip. “He’d get help. From…” She pales. “Oh, god.” 

 

“What?  _What_?” Emma opens her mouth and then there’s blue smoke everywhere and Regina waves it away, coughing. When it drifts away they’re right outside Zelena’s barn.

 

“Walsh,” Emma finishes unnecessarily, because he’s standing right there, sneering at them from where he has an arm wrapped around Henry. They’re all there, Zelena in the center of the barn with the dagger and Rumple in the back, eyes unfathomable as he glares at Zelena, and Emma snaps out a dark, “Shit,” that Regina agrees with too heartily to reprove her for it.

 

“Mom! Mayor Mills!  _Mom_!” Henry shouts, and Regina sees the circle under him, the lines that trace back to Zelena. A spell in its early stages, still missing a core element. And Henry looks pale and terrified but thus far unharmed.

 

“What have you done to the boy’s heart, Sis?” Zelena drawls. “It’s been most inconvenient.”

 

Henry is the two of them in miniature, eyes narrowed and fierce with defiance, and Regina doesn’t want to imagine Zelena seizing his heart, passing her hand into his chest as Henry- who doesn’t believe in magic, who would never have imagined such violation- quakes with fear. “It’s going to be all right, Henry,” she says, but the rage is building, red-hot and reckless, and all she can think of is murder.

 

“How do you want to do this?” Emma mutters under her breath. Her magic is already flowing, returning from where it had dissipated to waft around her as her hands light up. Her eyes are glinting cold like steel- colder than Regina’s ever seen them, because Emma has always been fire and fury around her- and she looks like she wants to…

 

“Kill them all,” Regina growls, and zeroes in on Zelena’s heart as the witch laughs and Emma hisses with approval and Zelena sends a lazy insult her way.

 

It takes a moment of discipline before she’s responding on automatic, eyes shifting to Henry as she tosses out whatever witty repartee is expected of her. Her thoughts are murky with _kill, kill, kill_ and the image of Zelena’s heart in her hand and she has to focus hard on Henry- on love, peace, the instincts of a mother- before she’s calm enough to send him a clear thought.  _“Henry, it’s me.”_

 

His eyes flash to hers once and then he looks away, struggling against Walsh’s grip again as though he’d never heard her.  _“Clever boy.”_ A faint smile.  _“When I tell you to move, I need you to shove Walsh as best as you can, and then run to Emma. Don’t stop moving until you’re there.”_

 

She smirks at Zelena, glances at Henry again, and sees that he’s shaking his head very slightly, eyes on Emma behind her. And for the first time, she turns back to her side and Zelena follows her gaze and they’re both startled into silence.

 

Emma is on fire, burning with blue flames that surround her like she’s an angel of death. Her skin is so pale it’s nearly translucent blue and her eyes are all Regina can see of her, dark and cold and furious. “What have you brought to me?” Zelena says in a voice pitched just too high to be unafraid, and Regina seizes her chance, hurtles toward Walsh and shouts  _“Now!”_ in Henry’s mind as she draws a fireball.

 

Walsh is still staring at Emma when Henry stamps hard on his instep and smashes his head into the man’s chin, dazing him for just long enough that Emma moves in a blur and emerges with her hand at Walsh’s neck. 

 

She’d had a nightmare once (and a few dreams that weren’t) of Emma in the same position in front of her, eyes filled with murder and she helpless in her grasp. That had been thrilling and terrifying, like a twisted fantasy she’d known better than to want outside her dreamworld, and now, on Emma here, it’s as though an alien creature has possessed her.

 

Henry slips out from under Emma’s arm and then he’s running to Regina, throwing his arms around her and holding tight. She hugs him close to her as her head swivels back to Zelena. “Good job, sweetheart,” she murmurs, and jerks them both out of the way as a green blast of energy is leveled at them. 

 

“Is this some sort of deception?” Zelena demands, approaching while they’re hurled through the air, Henry’s head ducked against her as she throws up her shields around them before they crash into the barn wall. 

 

They both stumble to their feet and Henry immediately stands in front of her, protective. She wraps an arm around him and lights a fireball with the other hand, letting it grow until it’s big enough that Henry is squinting in the heat. “First tip to being a villain in Storybrooke- antagonizing Emma Swan will get you nowhere.” She throws the fireball and Zelena catches it in midair, closing her hand around it until it shrinks into nothingness.

 

“ _Failed_ villain,” Zelena corrects her. “I’m far beyond your caliber.”

 

She smirks through bared teeth. “I’m sure our mother thought so, too.” 

 

Zelena lets out another scream that indicates what Regina’s already fairly certain of- that this is a woman who’s lost enough of her mind to hatred and jealousy that she’s just barely teetering on the brink of insanity. Deep within her, she mourns, as the rest of her hates without mercy. “You know nothing about that!” Zelena howls, and she flies toward them just as another scream sounds.

 

 _Emma_. But it’s a masculine shout, frantic and terrified, and it’s Walsh who’s screaming instead, panicked even though he’s managed to put some distance between himself and Emma. No, he’s been shoved backward, and Emma is watching from a few feet away, fists clenched and her whole body tremoring as though she can’t contain her own hatred anymore. “His heart,” Henry whispers, clutching more tightly to her arm. “Oh my god, what’s Mom doing?” 

 

 _Kill them all._ And what had seemed so simple moments before, with Henry in their enemies’ hands, is suddenly infinitely more complicated when it’s Emma who’s attacking, when Emma is surging with power and hatred and it was never supposed to be Emma like this. It’s what Regina’s here for, it’s _who_ Regina is, dancing on the lines between dark and light so the Charmings can keep their vaunted purity. 

 

This could be a loss of control. She wishes it desperately, searches for that wildness in Emma’s eyes, but all she sees is self-possessed calculation, as focused and controlled as Emma had been when she’d clenched invisible fingers around King George’s heard. And Walsh’s chest is heaving now- real heaves as though something’s trying to escape from it- and then a glowing red heart pops out of his chest and lands in Emma’s hands, blue fire crackling around it, and Emma holds it and squeezes hard. 

 

Walsh falls to the ground, crying out again. Regina is frozen in place, Henry held to her. “Magnificent,” murmurs a soft voice to their left. Rumple is gazing at Emma with nothing less than sheer desire, the way he’d once looked at her, too.  _Lust_.  _Power_.  _Darkness._

 

Emma squeezes the heart again, and she’s growling out words now. “You don’t touch Henry!” she growls, and she isn’t on the same edge as Zelena, she’s fierce and stunning and terrible. And she doesn’t seem to care that Henry’s  _here_ , Regina has him, he isn’t in Walsh’s grasp anymore. Henry is shouting her name and she seems to hear nothing. 

 

Regina wants to see this man suffer, wants to  _make_ him suffer the moment Henry is safe and sound again, but not through Emma. Not like this, where Emma’s crossing lines and Henry is here to see it and she’s too tense to even muster up her own deadly hate. Walsh rocks on the floor, holding onto his chest as he curls up in agony. “Not enough,” Emma says, an odd hollow echo to her voice as she speaks. “It’s not–“ 

 

There’s a year of betrayal there, a year of lies and deceit that has plagued Emma until now, and Regina understands. Regina would do the same in her position, most likely, and has taken more than her fair share of hearts. But this can’t be Emma. Henry is crying silently now, and she turns him carefully to hide his face against her shoulder. He doesn’t turn back, doesn’t look to see what his other mother is doing, and she’s glad for that small mercy for them all.

 

“It’s not enough,” Emma says again, and then it’s like she implodes, like there’s too much energy inside her and she releases it all in a blur of motion. 

 

Regina had never cared much for physical battles. She’d left them to her knights and had little interest in watching them, and she’d never seen this much blood before. Emma is rage and power and strength all at once, the ultimate in physicality who never shies away from a fight, and there’s magic flying everywhere like a mad scientist’s lab and Walsh is screaming again, and Emma is red with his blood as it pours from his chest and his mouth and nose. She strikes out again and again and no one else dares come close, dares look away, Zelena and Rumple and Regina all transfixed by the horror in front of them.

 

And then Emma opens her hand again and there’s Walsh's heart in it again. Walsh blinks up at her, his face unrecognizable, and he croaks out a weak, “I did love you,” as slimy and false as anything else he must have said to her. 

 

“Liar,” Emma says, and hurls the heart at the ground with such force that it shatters to dust with only that. And Walsh twitches wildly for a moment and then lies still. 

 

There’s silence in the air for only a moment before Zelena is screeching in fury and rushing recklessly toward Emma, her own magic surging to her in waves, and an instant later there’s a burst of energy in response and she’s tumbling back in a sea of battling green and blue. Her face takes on a desperate, spiteful cast. “Rumplestiltskin! Take the boy!” she orders, waving the dagger.

 

Emma is a maelstrom of power, eyes shadowed and ugly and desperately lost, and she’s  _glorious_ in a way that appeals to Regina's basest desires, to the queen within her who wants only to possess such magnificent things. She dreams for a moment of this Emma by her side in the Enchanted Forest, deadly and uncontrolled and beautiful, a princess worthy of a queen, and she shudders at the want that suffuses her body.

 

A stifled sob reminds her of where she is and she holds tight to Henry, hurling a fireball at Rumple as he walks toward them. His gait is slow, choppy in his reluctance, and he says, “I apologize,” like he means it.

 

Then he’s whirling toward them and Regina throws a wave of magic at him in desperation, art he’s taught her and she’s made her own, and he blows it aside with sheer power as she hisses out a curse of frustration. This is a room of giants and she’s the tiny David below their Goliaths, her five-stoned slingshot running out rapidly. 

 

And yet, with all the rage and force that suffuses the room, it’s only she who has someone to protect. She feels every inch of her straining, every muscle worn out with only her force of will, and the magic she draws forth is lethal enough to send Rumple spinning across the barn right into Zelena. He stumbles back toward her and she gathers her strength again, focuses on Henry and  _true love is the most powerful magic of all_ and something purple-white bursts from her fingers and keeps him at bay. 

 

She gapes at her hands for a moment and the magic fades as quickly as it had come, her internal reserves all but exhausted, and Rumple lurches closer. “Get the dagger,” he says, face pale and drawn, and it sounds like defeat from him. She’s never seen him like this, so powerless even with all the dark forces he holds in his grasp, and she thinks she might have enjoyed it in another life, when they’d been rivals with power struggles and he’d been yet another to take advantage of her back when she’d been soft enough to allow it. 

 

But today all she can think about is Henry and Emma, both in danger from wholly different sources. “Emma!” she calls, and there’s a blur of action behind her and then _Emma_ , still moving too quickly but now she’s wrestling with Zelena again, being thrown back against the wall by a burst of green, and Zelena laughs gleefully and turns away. 

 

“You aren’t worth my time,” she sneers, walking from Emma with her hands outstretched toward Regina. “Call off your puppy, Sis. She’s nothing against my…” 

 

But Rumple is stopping and Zelena stares down at hands that had been holding the dagger and Regina realizes in an instant what’s changed. She pushes Henry toward the barn exit and races toward Rumple in one swift motion, reaching him just as Emma reaches Rumple with new intent, so much rage in her eyes that Regina can think of it as a living thing still not sated. She remembers days like that, when darkness had wound through her and she’d wanted only to  _hurt_ until she’d stopped caring who it was she’d targeted.

 

Rumple looks alarmed. “Miss Swan, I assure you that you don’t want to use that,” he says urgently, and Regina’s mouth goes dry at the realization. If Emma stabs the Dark One with the dagger…

 

“Emma.”

 

“Regina, stay  _back,_ ” Emma says. It’s the first time she’s spoken since Walsh’s murder and there are a dozen tones of darkness laid upon each other within her words. “Don’t you feel it calling?” She’s staring down at the dagger in her grasp, Rumple still rooted in place, and there’s hunger on her face that makes Regina queasy. 

 

Rumple shakes his head, a shadow crossing his face. “You never had what it wanted,” he murmurs to Regina, and she feels a ridiculous surge of jealousy amidst frustrated confusion.

 

There’s no time for this. Not now. “Emma,” she says urgently. “Emma, you need to stop.”  

 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Emma snaps, eyes still glued to the dagger. She touches it to Rumple’s chest and he stands very still. “Don’t you get it? This is what I need to save everyone. This is how we keep the darkness out of Henry’s life. Him gone. Her gone. No more crises.” 

 

“No more,” she repeats dubiously, and Emma glares at her with- ah, _now_ she’s looking more like Zelena, on the brink of mass destruction. The dagger digs into Rumple’s ribs and they’re running out of time to reason with her. “If you kill him, you’ll become that darkness. Do we need to keep him out of your life, too?” 

 

It’s exactly the right thing to say to have Emma turn around, eyes wild and dangerous, her target forgotten. “I’ll kill you.” 

 

She sneers, less out of habit than to conceal her own trepidation. “You can try.” The first blow is expected but she staggers under it anyway. It’s like being punched with a sledgehammer and she’s thrown backward as Henry shouts and Emma looms closer, hands still extended toward her. “Closer, closer,” she taunts Emma, her voice hoarse with the exertion of keeping up her shields when she’s so drained. “What, are you afraid of me?” 

 

Emma takes another step closer, blasting her with energy nearly midnight blue, and she’s terrifying, more hatred on her face than there’d been even after Henry had eaten the poison apple. “Regina, I swear to god…” She presses in, just a few feet away, and Regina springs to action.

 

She seizes Emma’s hand hard enough that the dagger falls from their joined grasps and she feels magic surging into her almost instantly, magic Emma doesn’t know how  _not_ to share with her even now. It flows between them and Emma struggles to break free but it’s too late, Regina can feel the power singing through her like a concertato come to life within her, and she isn’t quite so raw as Emma. She directs this new outpouring of magic with practiced skill, hurling Emma back and away from them until she’s on the floor and Regina is standing tall, aflame with magic she can hardly contain.

 

Emma’s eyes widen like she might finally have remembered herself and Regina’s about to speak when someone else does and the blood drains from Emma’s face. “Mom?” Henry asks tentatively from behind them, and Emma disappears.

 

* * *

**xii. amplification**

Henry’s grown almost to her height but now he’s shrinking back, tiny and pale with terror, and Regina tightens her grip on him and wishes she could enjoy this embrace more. Her skin is buzzing with power, magic angry and seductive and turning her stomach, and it’s impossible to feel even Henry’s arms around her with this much power straining to be free.

 

Rumple and Zelena have vanished again with the dagger during her fight with Emma and there’s only a faint signature of magic where Emma had been. The barn is all but empty now, all traces of the spell gone and David’s sword on the floor, the magic that had surrounded it twisted and broken. Zelena’s spell had failed, and from the looks of it, it’s so tightly tied to her essence that it can’t get a repeat performance.

 

“Is she going to be back?” Henry whispers.

 

“Zelena?”

 

“Mom.” He says it with so much longing that it _hurts_ , makes her bitter like it had when he’d first said it about someone other than her, and the magic hums approvingly. No. No, she has herself under control, and she won’t let this magic let her feel so free that she’ll fall too far again. “Did she really do that to…to Walsh?” He’s staring at the man on the ground with wide-eyed, fearful fascination and Regina bites her lip and struggles hard to let the words come out properly.

 

“She was protecting you from him. She’d do anything to protect you. Don’t look at him.” 

 

He turns obediently. “I thought he was the only one I could trust.” She feels a flash of pain at that admission, one she wholly deserves. “But he was from here too.” 

 

“I’m sorry.” Her words are still strained and she can barely think straight. She isn’t a vessel like Emma, laden with pure magic that flows so easily through her that it’s a part of who she is now- so much so that it only sometimes answers to its own receptacle. She’s a magic user who’s given years of her life to the discipline of her magic, molding it into the perfect tool for her, and this is like being offered a sword thrice the size of her own and being expected to wield it effortlessly. And instead she’s inundated with the dark temptation of power, of control over everything around her if she only _wills_ it, and she takes a long, shuddery breath that has Henry looking up at her with sudden renewed fear.

 

“Mom hurt you, too. But you’re…you saved me.” 

 

He shakes his head like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be thinking about any of them and Regina angles downward to face him, her knees quaking with the movement. “We’ll tell you everything. All of it, I swear. No more secrets.” His eyes are suddenly hopeful, earnest and hungry and maybe there should be punishment but there’s so much confusion on his face. He’s been languishing in lies for too long now, and he’s suffered enough for their secrecy until now. “But I have to go find…your mom first.” She says words she’s avoided until now and they scrape like nails on a chalkboard to her ears, the new magic still within her pressing at her skin with frenzied need. “And I need to get you somewhere safe in the meantime.” Safe from Zelena. Safe from Rumple. Safe from his mothers, both overwhelmed with more than they can handle.

 

Henry’s eyes narrow. “No more secrets?” 

 

“None,” she agrees.

 

His brow crinkles in response and his lips press together in a challenge she doesn’t understand until he presents his final question. “What was your son’s name?” 

 

She recognizes it for the test it is, that somehow Henry’s picked up on truths beyond him and he’s done being misled. “Henry,” she answers evenly. “His name is Henry.” She says _is_ not _was_ and Henry’s mouth thins further and his brow furrows more and he doesn’t understand exactly, not yet. “Hold tight,” she says, and they vanish in a puff of smoke and reappear on a boat.

 

It isn’t the boat she expects, nor is it the room that she’d sat in with Henry on the trip back to Neverland, but the man sprawled across the bed is the one she requires. And said man is very much in the nude. “Get up,” she orders. 

 

Hook twitches and rolls over. Instinctively, she covers Henry’s eyes. “Cover yourself, you nimrod.” 

 

“R- _Regina_?” An eye opens, a brow quirks.

 

 _Too slow_ , she thinks, irritated. She waves her hand again and they’re at the edge of town, Hook on the ground with his backside in the dirt. He yelps and she stands over him, arms crossed. “We don’t have time for you to wake up. Where the hell is your ship?” 

 

Hook shuffles to his feet, a hand scratching the back of his neck modestly. “I had to trade it for a magic bean to bring Swan and her lad here. You know she always comes first with me.”

 

“Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard. You might impale yourself with that hook,” Regina says dryly, and her magic screams murder at the expression on Hook’s face, moon-eyed and noble and so very infatuated with the woman she shouldn’t be thinking of as _hers_ after one heated makeout session in her dining room. 

 

Jealousy is rarely so sensible, and even less so when there’s this much power to accompany the emotion. She focuses on Henry, reminds herself of his hand on her shoulder- _You’re not a villain. You’re my mom-_ and the magic falls again, sated for a precious moment before it clamors for release again.

 

It’s too easy to make a pair of boxers appear on Hook- a hideous color and far too large, enough that Hook makes a sound in his throat that sounds almost like a protest before he sees the dangerous look in her eyes and falls silent at once- and a gun in his hand. “Cross the line,” she instructs him. “Neither of you move until I get back here with Emma. Shoot anyone who gets too close.” 

 

They both nod and she crouches again so she’s level with Henry’s vision. “Stay with Killian. He may be incompetent–“ 

 

“Oi!” 

 

“–But Zelena can’t hurt you across the town line. Not with her magic.” 

 

His eyes squint out at her. “Is that why Mom wanted to leave town?”

 

Her clever, clever boy, so quick to understand even the most convoluted of stories. She kisses him, quick lips against the top of his head in acquiescence, and there’s a stirring between them that quiets her magic for a moment. Then he backs across the town line with a grumbling Hook’s only hand on his shoulder and there’s a new gulf spreading between them.

 

She keeps that moment in her heart as she vanishes and reappears in the barn again. Her own technique is more flashy, impetuous and mercurial as she is, but Emma’s magic within her is different. It reacts swiftly in flashes of emotion, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it and she’s where she needs to be, and it’s gone back inside her as quickly as it had come. It interacts with her own energy into something so powerful that they’d opened portals together and so quick that she steps forward and she’s in the sheriff’s station, in Emma’s room at the inn, in her own living room, everywhere at once as she searches for her target.

 

And when she closes her eyes and surrenders herself to the magic for an instant, it feels like coming home, like being fulfilled, like this is everything she’ll ever need. This magic- _their_ magic- it’s something unique, something she’d never shared with Rumple or her mother or Maleficent. She could get lost in it. She could die in it.

 

Her eyes fly open and she sees that she’s in the woods, in a clearing far from Zelena’s home, and there’s a blonde woman crouched down on the opposite side of it, forehead against her bent knees and magic in blues and whites escaping from her hands and being drawn back into her body as she convulses. “Emma,” she murmurs.

 

Emma’s head jerks up and she glares at Regina with such fire in her eyes that Regina takes a step forward, drawn to Emma’s anger like a moth to a flame. “Get away from me or I’ll kill you too.”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her borrowed magic lances out just as Emma’s does, meeting her halfway and pressing back. They’re stronger combined, always have been, and something wavers and explodes outward when their magic locks. “This is no time.”

 

“No time?” Emma demands, and this time her magic is like whiplash, jerking back at Regina as the first explosion settles. Regina throws up a shield just as she’s thrown into a tree, her hair tangling in an outthrust of bark and her head spinning. “Did you miss the part where I murdered my boyfriend?” 

 

“Spare me the pity party, Miss Swan,” Regina grits out, shoving to her feet and off the tree to stalk toward the other woman. Emma’s attacks are unpredictable and it makes it even harder to deflect them, harder to throw her own back at her. And none of this is how she’d imagined the night would end, Emma like a spooked animal lashing out at her. “He was trying to hurt our son.” 

 

“That doesn’t change anything!” She doesn’t even know if Emma knows what she’s doing, slamming Regina against another tree with nothing but brute force and no awareness of what’s going on. “I don’t have some kind of lengthy body count, okay? I’m not a killer like you. I can’t–” 

 

 _That’s_ a directed attack, though it’s just as careless with its need to hurt as any of the magical bursts, and Regina reels back and feels her own combined magic emerge again. “I think you’d be surprised at what you’re capable of,” she says coldly, and there’s something dark and furious about it that allows the magic roiling inside her break free, pouring toward Emma, so swift that she doesn’t think to stop it until Emma is slamming against a cluster of trees with a cry. 

 

“Emma!” Emma doesn’t have shields, hasn’t learned defensive magic, and she can see the scrapes and the blood already, the way Emma’s eyes are clouding over and her magic is swirling out around her in defense.

 

Regina runs through the mist of blue, feeling it attack and react and absorb, and her heart is pounding wildly in a rhythm that has nothing to do with magic. “Emma, Emma,” she chants, dropping down in front of the other woman to press her hands to purple-black bruises that are already beginning to bloom across the sides of her face. “Emma, stay with me, Emma.” 

 

Somewhere in the wildness that is all this magic, tempting like the night after too many days in the sun, she finds healing energy, lets it seep into Emma’s skin until Emma blinks up at her dazedly. “We need to stop…all of this,” Regina says, nodding vaguely to the energy flowing around them. Purple is fading into blue is fading into white and it’s beginning to _hurt_ , keeping it within, letting it rupture them from the inside out. “To find a release.” 

 

It’s making them angry and volatile and reacting in all the wrong ways, and maybe she shouldn’t be surprised when Emma mumbles, “Okay,” and pulls her against her mouth. 

 

She kisses hard now, almost angry, biting and sucking hard at Regina’s lips and down her jaw to her neck, and Regina tilts her head back and lets the sensations wash over her. Magic flows in-out-in-out-in-out and her pulse is racing and Emma is everywhere at once, arching her back as Regina’s fingers move to scrape at it and pressing open-mouthed kisses down the open lines of the front of her dress. 

 

She’s still on her knees over Emma and there’s some fumbling before she’s backed against a tree in a haze of magical energy, and all she can see is Emma in front of her, eyes very blue and dilated and her hands tugging at Regina’s dress. “We’re not doing this in the middle of the woods,” she manages to protest, halfhearted at best, and Emma laughs roughly and slides down her body with her dress.

 

“You sure?” Emma's nipping at the skin at the hollow of her stomach, firm if not quite as toned at Emma’s own, and Regina growls, “Shut up,” and shoves her against the apex of her legs. 

 

There are flashes everywhere, heat that rises from within and around them until she’s sticky with sweat and barely notices it amidst the dropping sensation in her stomach and from her core. And she knows that they’ve flipped positions somewhere along the way, that she’s sucking greedily at Emma’s clit and they’re both grinding against each other and kissing and it’s all happening in a blur, it’s all muffled cries and _fuck, fuck, fuck_ and she might have offered some colorful insults toward Emma’s parentage along the way (always a perk, really), and there’s magic everywhere, quickening their movements and leaving Regina’s senses so heightened that she can feel Emma’s reactions to her as they come. 

 

They come like their magic. She comes in a swell of overwhelming power, like riding waves that crest and crash to the ground so hard that she’s seeing stars after. Emma comes in tiny bursts, jolt after jolt after jolt until they’re both shaking against each other and clinging together, holding on for balance as they sink to the ground.

 

“It’s quiet,” Emma whispers, and she doesn’t understand until she closes her eyes and feels the turmoil of all the magic they’d been swamped in faded at last. Her magic is still there, but it’s returned to a comfortable thrum as controlled as her heartbeat, finally free of Emma’s power. The exhilaration of total control is gone, and she breathes more easily with its departure and misses it all the same.

 

“It is,” she agrees, and Emma holds onto her more tightly, Regina’s head pillowed against her breast and her arms around Emma’s waist. “That’s one way of dealing with your magic.” 

 

“I’m sorry I…” Emma shudders against her. “I killed Walsh,” she says helplessly as an excuse that isn’t an excuse at all. “I shouldn’t have attacked you. I don’t even know…I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

 

She isn’t angry, not really, knowing firsthand how much magic can overwhelm the uninitiated. “You were keeping our son safe. I don’t think I’m one to criticize when that goes too far,” she says finally, pulling away from Emma just enough that Emma can lean against her instead, wrapped in her arms and pressing a kiss to her shoulder. They’re sitting on a bed of purplish moss that Regina is almost certain hadn’t been there before, the clearing around them bright with flowers and bushes, a vibrant garden that replaces the underbrush that had been there before.

 

Emma follows her gaze, and her own eyes widen with wonder. “Oh,” she breathes, a finger tracing circles around Regina’s areola as she stares. “We did this? Our magic did this?” 

 

She hears the second question, layered under the first. “Magic isn’t malicious by nature, Emma. You can use it to kill. You can use it to create.” She touches the ground beside them and a little purple flower springs up from the moss. “ _You_ do what you do with it.” 

 

Emma doesn’t respond, just stares at the flower, and it wilts and grows and wilts again under her gaze.

 

They dress slowly and Emma’s still silent, watching the flower as her wonder settles back into more familiar brooding, and she only looks away when Regina presses a kiss to her cheek. It’s instinctive, gentle, and she still doesn’t know exactly what they are now, but Emma’s arm slides around her waist with the kiss and she finally turns to smile wanly at her. “Where’s Henry now? With my parents?”

 

“Over the town line with Hook.” Regina touches her cheek. “I didn’t know where else he’d be safe.” 

 

“From me,” Emma mutters, and Regina can’t refute that without lying, so instead she kisses her again and they vanish and reappear at the town line where Henry is waiting.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted the first half of this chapter on Tumblr last week, so you can scroll on down to **xiv. improvisation** if you've already seen it.
> 
> I am slowly making my way through reviews (THANK YOU FOR THEM I LOVE THEM AND I LOVE YOU) but I wanted to get something out to you already so here it is! <3 Two Emma ficlets, and next chapter is one Henry and one Regina. Hopefully I'll be done by next week, this is a busy time of year for me but I should definitely be back on a normal writing schedule after this week (and enough so to get back to SMBTS too). :)

** xiii. recuperation **

“Tell me something true,” Henry says when they’re all back at Regina's, Henry in pajamas in his old bed and Regina cross-legged opposite him. Emma is on the floor, tracing patterns on faint woodgrain and staring at it as the other two wait expectantly. Regina’s hand dangles against her shoulder, knuckles brushing along the curve of her neck.

 

“You lived here,” she admits, and she cradles her hands together, struggles to remember the feel of baby Henry in her arms. Instead she remembers huddling in a cell with a hospital-issued blue cap that she’d smuggled out of the birthing room and tucked into her own baby blanket for storage. She’d thrown it out on Henry’s first birthday and refused to think any more of the past.

 

She can almost hear the frown in Henry’s voice. “When I was a baby?” 

 

“Yeah.” It’s like pulling teeth, these stilted admissions, and each one tugs the people on the bed a little farther away from her, a little closer to a truth that is only theirs. Regina’s fingers curl into her hair and up her jawline, to her cheek and the spot where she’d kissed her before. “And after.” 

 

“That doesn’t make sense.” She peeks up at him, sees his brow furrowed and lips in a scowl that is all Regina, all ten-year-old Henry struggling to force the truth from everyone around him and his mother most of all. 

 

Regina finally steps in, and Emma’s never been more grateful for her. Well. Maybe not  _never_. “One year ago, this whole town was cursed and the only way for me to stop it was to…to give up the one I loved most.” She steals a glance at Henry and there’s so much unfiltered adoration in it that Emma pulls her knees against her chest to quiet her pounding heartbeat. 

 

“Me?” Henry sounds small, disbelieving, and Emma shuts her eyes. Opens them. Turns to watch him again. “I’m…but then…” He meets Emma’s eyes. “You’re not my real mom?” he asks, and it slices her into ribbons of pain and regret and terror and she wants to vomit, to stop  _feeling_ so much because she’s going to fall apart if she stays in here any longer. 

 

She pulls away from Henry’s gaze and keeps her face still and listens as Regina- Regina, whom she’d first met with a shout of  _I found my real mom!_ from Henry himself- says sharply, “Don’t talk like that.” 

 

Henry jerks, taken aback, and Regina softens. “You chose her, do you understand?” She talks about Henry’s past, about adoption and curses and birth mothers, and it’s rapid and she isn’t finishing all her sentences but Henry’s nodding and pushing forward and they both talk the same way when they’re engaged, short sentences and quick pauses and emotions that lift Henry’s voice and lower Regina’s. And again, just as urgent, “I chose you to be my family. And you chose Emma to be yours. It took me a long time to accept it, but we’re both real. We’re both yours, as long as you’re happy.” 

 

Henry chews on his lip and when Emma looks up, he’s watching her. “Tell me something true,” he says again, and this time she says, “I love you,” and climbs up to the bed and hugs him to her, so tight that it squeezes tears from the corners of her eyes and she shakes and shakes around him. 

 

He stays in her arms, limp and silent, and then he says, “You always said you couldn’t imagine giving me up after you saw my eyes for the first time.”

 

“I couldn’t,” she says truthfully. In lying dreams, they’d been barely open and green-brown and she’d wondered what they’d look like when he’d be able to focus on her. In the real world, he’d looked up at her from outside her door in Boston and in barely an instant her entire life had been irrevocably altered.

 

And this Henry who can’t compartmentalize in favor of finding a savior and magic, this Henry who knows their history together in a universe where his best chance had been right with her– he closes his eyes and slips from her grasp and says, “I’m tired.” 

 

“It’s very late,” Regina murmurs in immediate acquiescence. Emma had forgotten how easily Regina cedes to Henry’s every request since the curse, how somehow for all her discipline and hardassery, Regina is the one more likely to spoil Henry rotten, too. 

 

“You can’t leave again,” Emma puts in warningly. Henry bobs his head, his back already to her. She can see his reflection in the window opposite him, eyes wide open and as emotionless as her own.  _That_ he’s gotten from her. “Do you…do you want me to stay with you tonight?” 

 

He shakes his head and Regina murmurs, “Come, Emma. I’ll show you to the guest room.”

 

She pads after Regina and waits patiently as Regina shows her the en suite bathroom and closet, and then she pads after Regina as Regina walks to her own room, feeling more like a lost puppy than like she’s trying to seduce anyone, to push anything more than what’s happened tonight. Regina glances at her, strips off her clothes and changes into pajamas under her gaze, and Emma stands in the doorway and watches and thinks about lying in a garden of their own making with Regina’s skin sticky against hers.

 

She takes a step forward and Regina closes the door behind them, peels off Emma’s jacket and shirt for her, eases down her pants until she’s in her underwear. And her clothing is in a suitcase just down the stairs but she doesn’t protest when Regina takes her hand and leads her to the big bed in her room, brushes a kiss behind her ear and curls around her, and neither of them speak for a long time as the light of sunrise begins to seep into the room.

 

She thinks about Walsh’s eyes when she’d crushed his heart, desperate and terrified, and she shivers at the thrill of satisfaction that passes through her at the memory. She’d never seen him like that before, never with anything to fear. He’d been so…quintessentially  _normal_ , back in New York. 

 

She’d craved normal and its simplicity, and now she’s tucked into a former evil queen’s arms after killing that final symbol of normalcy. And she should be horrified but she's all wrung out instead, as though there’s no more horror left within her to expend on Walsh. She’d  _killed_ someone, and all she can think about is facing Henry in the morning and holding onto Regina. She doesn’t want to sink into worry and self-hatred and despair, to wallow in the emotions she should be having when they’re this taxing. 

 

She rolls over in Regina’s arms, pulling her against her, and Regina mumbles something cranky at the switch but burrows into her embrace anyway, nuzzling against a spot just below her collarbone. “I’m sorry,” she says again, because for  _this_ she can dwell. “For attacking you earlier.” More poor impulse control, the kind that had let her lash out without the presence of mind to consider what she’d been doing.

 

Regina’s shoulders rise and drop in a shrug, and Emma slides her hands over them, touching sheer satin and stroking down her shoulder blades. Regina with magic and corporate dresses and Henry by her side has the presence of a queen, but this is closer to the Regina she’d gotten to see on that night she’d fled to her, barefoot and soft-eyed, only a woman first. Mayor Mills is impressive and glows with vitality, but Regina like this steals her breath away. She’d forgotten how tiny- how almost fragile- Regina can be when they’re both still.

 

“How are you feeling?” she murmurs against soft hair, so long that it’s past Regina’s shoulders.

 

She’d asked because Zelena and she both had tossed Regina around a few times and Regina shows no sign of injury, but Regina takes it otherwise. “He knows I’m his mother,” she says. Her eyes are glittering up at Emma now, tears unshed and savored. “I have Henry back. It’s been…it’s been years.” 

 

She sounds awed, amazed at the idea of it as though she’d never expected for Henry to be hers again, and Emma feels a stab of unease at the memory of keeping Henry from Regina before Neverland. It had been the necessary decision when she’d thought that Regina had killed Archie; and by the time she’d returned from Manhattan, Regina had been even more unstable and unsafe for him.

 

But she’d never really had the right to make those decisions, and she’d known it in the back of her mind and pushed the knowledge aside in favor of more convenient truths about Regina’s past that would justify Emma's selfish desires. 

 

She blinks down at Regina, feeling as though she should say  _something_ now that they’re at peace and Regina had handed Henry off to her with a decade of happy memories to boot. But Regina is watching her, eyes still shining but more somber as though she’s remembering the same details as Emma. They stare at each other for a moment, defiance muddled with apology and uncertainty, and Emma mumbles, “Maybe it’s time you thought about branching out.” 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“I don’t know. Have…other people. More people. Than just Henry.” She flushes and looks away, rolling so she’s facing the ceiling, but her arms still pull Regina tighter until the other woman is curled into her again, her forehead nestled in the crook of Emma's neck. “I don’t know what you did in the missing year, but…it would be good for you, yeah?” 

 

“Mm.” She hears something like a smile in Regina’s voice and then they both shift again, awkward in their vulnerability, and Regina says, “If you ever attack me again like you did today, I’ll kill you.” 

 

It doesn’t have much bite to it, and she grins to herself and agrees, “I’d expect nothing less from you.” Her hand dips under Regina’s pajama shirt to feel the warmth of her back against her palm. “Teach me how to heal you,” she whispers. She remembers being thrown back against a tree, exquisite pain that had jolted her from her overload of power, and then sweet relief like water in a parched man’s throat. She’d been kissing Regina a moment later, overwhelmed at her own desire to close every distance between them, and when they’d come crashing down, there had been a garden and nothing had hurt anymore.

 

“I’m fine,” Regina says, but she snuggles in closer to Emma and Emma thinks that maybe it’s nothing physical that hurts now. Regina is safe. “I might have to sleep a while for my magic to recharge, but I’m fine.” 

 

She’s always been seized by this impossible desire to take care of Regina that had made no  _sense_. Maybe she’d been caught up in the first image of Regina she’d ever seen, terrified single mother who’d brought her inside and made herself so vulnerable so early that Emma had nearly reciprocated (before Regina had done a one-eighty and told her that she’d destroy her, anyway). Maybe it’s only seeing this woman who’d had  _no one_ in her camp for so long that it had all gone bad and knowing that Emma herself had once been the same. 

 

Maybe it’s because she’s the only one whom Regina seems to  _let_ take care of her, and she recognizes it for the privilege of intimacy that it is. And now that they’ve reached new intimacy, Emma feels at ease in the comfort of it, Regina looking after her as industriously as she does the same to her. “Okay,” Emma says, and closes her eyes. “Okay.” 

 

She’s drifting off, thoughts of Walsh and Henry and Zelena fading away, when Regina says, very quietly, “What did the dagger call to you?” 

 

She stiffens and Regina stills against her. She doesn’t know how to answer that, not when she’s still not entirely sure that she’d meant to stab Gold in the first place. She’d wanted…she’d wanted to  _win,_ to save Regina and Henry and stop Zelena and be the fucking savior she’s supposed to be for a change instead of running in circles waiting for the big guns. She’d wanted to be strong and unafraid and unstoppable, and the dagger in her hand had felt like clarity when she’d looked at it.

 

Regina wouldn’t understand it, of course. Regina doesn’t need power to take away her fears and make her unstoppable. She’d be charging into battles with the same recklessness even if she  _had_ been only an ordinary woman with not an iota of magic to her. Regina is charged by her heart- for better or for worse- and no dagger that would dull that heart would have any use for her without it. 

 

Emma’s heart feels like a gaping wound, bleeding out and bandaged up so it does everything all  _wrong_ , the only one she loves right is Henry and she doesn’t even know if she has him anymore. She takes weapons into fights and she doesn’t trust her heart to be enough, prefers guns and muscles and even daggers that whisper new truths into her ears.

 

She forces her body to relax and her breath to even out and she’s asleep before she answers the question.

 

+

 

Regina is still asleep in the morning, but Emma notices now how sallow her skin had been the night before, her magic drained and her face with an unhealthy pallor. Now there are warm brown undertones beginning to color her cheeks and Emma doesn’t dare be sentimental enough to brush a kiss to them. Nope. They’re not  _domestic_ like that.

 

Instead she closes the shades to block out some of the light and covers Regina with her comforter, fingers trailing up the sides of Regina's legs in the process. Regina smiles in her sleep and Emma jerks away, flushing, and heads to the shower. 

 

She sees Henry in the dining room when she comes down the stairs, eating cereal and reading through the book. She's pantsless and in one of Regina’s blouses as she digs through her suitcase for a pair of jeans, and he looks up from his book once her pants are on. “Hi,” she says, suddenly awkward like they’ve barely met again.

 

He watches her as she walks in, his face still and expressionless. “I found breakfast,” he says, tapping his bowl. “I thought I should wait until Mayor…until…she…” His face cracks like a shell, something lost and confused beneath the surface, and Emma swallows hard and walks toward him. “But this is my house anyway, right?”

 

“Yes,” she says, and tries to smile at him. It’s small and probably unconvincing. 

 

Henry doesn’t smile back, but he does push the cereal toward her. She takes one of the bowls he’d set out for the three of them, sitting down across from him at the table. “Regina might be sleeping for a while. Something about replenishing her magic supply.” 

 

“Oh.” Henry looks a little dazed under his stubbornness. “Magic supply. Right. Did…did last night really happen?”

 

She foregoes the milk, eyeing cereal so sugary that she can’t believe Regina’s been hoarding  _that_  in her house without Henry there. “Unfortunately.”

 

“Did you really…?” 

 

She knows what he’s asking, sharp-eyed and tense, this boy who’d almost had the man she’d murdered as his stepdad. “Yeah. I…I really hate this town,” she says, laughing with no humor in it.

 

“I'm not leaving,” Henry says at once, and her heart hurts at the  _I_ instead of  _we_. “You were going to take me away from here and you  _knew_ that this was our home. My home. I would have spent my whole life feeling like…like it was all wrong.” His voice is accusing and his gaze doesn’t waver from hers, and she struggles to meet his eyes.

 

“Are you beginning to understand why I would take us away from here?” she asks, feeling helpless at it. “You were nearly killed last night. This isn’t the kind of place I want for you.” 

 

“ _I_ want it.” Henry digs back into his cereal. “What do I call her?” 

 

He switches tacks so quickly that she startles, not tracking the question. “What?” 

 

“Mayor Mills. What do I call her?” He seems disinterested, focused on eating, but she sees the crease of his brow and recognizes his uncertainty. He’s never been this reticent around her- maybe when he’d found out that she’d lied about Neal, but even that had been all snark and lashing out, Regina’s son through and through. This Henry takes after her in all the worst ways.

 

“Mom,” she murmurs. “You call her Mom.”

 

“What did I call you?” 

 

“Mom. Or Emma,” she adds, feeling obligated to tell the whole truth. “For a while when we first met. You only started calling me Mom once you’d moved in after the curse.”

 

“Because  _she_ was the Evil Queen.” He pronounces the title like they’re foreign and they  _sound_ foreign from this Henry’s mouth, without fear or anger or anything other than simple confusion at the term. “My…mom. Was she evil?”

 

Emma chooses her words carefully. “She’d hurt a lot of people in the past. And I think she’d been angry for a very long time. But now she’s…she’s been trying so hard. Because of you. For you. She loves you more than anything.” For this she can find her confidence again to venture, “You forgave her, I think. You loved her very much.” 

 

Henry’s eyes are intent on her again, little lips firmed together and wobbling just a bit, and he says very quickly, “I wanted her to be my mom. Before I knew.” 

 

Her hands crash down into her cereal and her heart is pounding furiously and she forces an abrupt nod in response. Henry doesn’t seem to notice what he’d implied with that,  _my mom_ and not  _one of my moms_ and this is the moment she’s been dreading since that fucking potion. “She’ll be thrilled to know that.” Her voice is strangled and it hurts to speak and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to be feeling except that maybe she’s had this coming. She’s been lying to him for weeks and he never takes kindly to that and she’s been so, so afraid, afraid all the time because Henry is the only good thing she’s ever had and she can’t lose him. Not now. Not to someone else who might be a good thing, too.

 

She sags in her chair and Henry wiggles his shoulders and smirks at her, the tension fading from the room. “You two together could work out okay, too.” 

 

It’s never been harder to pretend to be unaffected by him, by what he isn’t even aware that he’s admitted, and she starts. “What-“ 

 

“I saw you  _kissing_.” He looks half-fascinated, half-disgusted. “And you didn’t even shut the guest room door to pretend you were in there last night.” 

 

“And  _you_ are much too nosy,” she says, sticking out a finger to poke him on his nose. For a minute it feels like the old days, memories that aren’t hers anymore where it’s them against the world and they’re uncomplicated and together. Where she’s enough for him and he isn’t dreaming about his real mother even when he doesn’t know her. 

 

But he flinches away at the last moment, the uncertainty back on his face, and she drops her hand and tries to smile. “Listen, I need to head out now for a bit. You don’t leave this house, okay?” she says sternly. “No running off. We can’t do last night again.” 

 

He scowls at her and she purses her lips together in response. “You mean  _kill_ someone again. That’s what you did. Right?” 

 

“Right.” Her face feels hard and stiff and she isn’t sure which betrayal it is that has Henry so on edge around her.  _Time,_ the part of her that knows how to mother reminds her.  _Give him time._ He’s been hit with shock after shock over the past twenty-four hours, and somewhere between  _magic is real_ and  _your life is a lie_ is the fact that the closest thing he’d had to a father figure had kidnapped him and she’d killed him in response. “Look, I know it’s…a tough situation, but that’s what I had to do, okay? And I’d do it again if I had to keep you safe. The rules are different here.”

 

His face is impassive and he glances down at the table again, this time to the book open beside his cereal bowl. His fingers shudder against his spoon. 

 

She straightens. “I’m going to head out to your grandparents’ now. Catch them up on what they've missed. I’ll be back in a little while.” Henry frowns up at her with new curiosity at  _grandparents_  and then shrugs in sullen dismissal, and she stumbles for the door before despair overwhelms her.

 

* * *

**xiv. improvisation**

 

“Emma!” Mary Margaret throws the door open and gapes at her. “Oh, Emma, we thought you’d gone!” 

 

There are arms around her before she can step back and she feels her own hands tighten around Mary Margaret’s back, her eyes drifting shut as she inhales a familiar scent like love and trust and all the things that she shouldn’t be letting herself feel around her mother. There’s no hesitation in Mary Margaret’s hug, no hesitation when taller, stronger arms close around both of them and David is there, too, the two of them still so comforting even when she knows that comfort is an illusion. 

 

She’d been hurling Mary Margaret around in circles while the other woman had screamed for help not twenty-four hours ago, and now it’s forgotten, ignored in favor of family togetherness that’s only a glittering sham to Emma. She can feel magic that had been dormant for blessed few hours tonight churning in her belly now with the promise of more pent-up resentment, and she bites her lip and shoves it away and pulls out of the two-way hug with the same movement. “Hi.” 

 

“We’ve been calling all night. David even went to your room at Granny’s and it was abandoned. Like you’d picked up and gone.” Mary Margaret still looks tearful. “Oh, Emma.” 

 

“I…uh. I don’t know where my phone is.” It’s dead somewhere in her car, probably. She doesn’t think she’d remembered to bring it into the mayoral mansion. “I guess we’re staying at Regina’s now.” 

 

Mary Margaret slaps her forehead. “I didn’t even think about asking Regina for help until it was nearly midnight and she wasn’t picking up, either.” She shakes her head. “I should have known that you’d never take Henry out of town without stopping there first.”

 

“Yeah.” Emma manages to squeeze past them into the house, perching on one of the bar stools by the kitchen island. “It was… a lot happened last night.” She doesn’t talk about running out of town or trying to bring Regina with them, even if Mary Margaret is probably putting the pieces together somewhere past the haze of pregnancy brain. Instead she tells them about Henry running and the two of them giving chase, about Rumple and Zelena and Walsh, and then she takes a deep breath and makes a confession she knows she  _has_ to. 

 

It’s easy to hide secrets behind Regina and Henry, but she’s supposed to be better than hidden evil impulses, she’s supposed to own up to what she’s done before it becomes too easy to ignore it. “And I…I killed him. Walsh. I dated him for eight months in New York and he was working for Zelena and he had Henry.” It all comes out in a jumble. “So I had to get rid of him.” 

 

Mary Margaret and David exchange glances and then David says carefully, “We aren’t going to jump on Regina for saving Henry’s life, no matter what she had to do.” 

 

Emma stares at them, uncomprehending, and Mary Margaret says, “She’s family. We know her methods aren’t always…” 

 

Her voice trails off and Emma finally figures out what they’re dancing around. “I’m not  _covering_ for Regina!” she says, irritated. “Me. I did it. I took Walsh out.” 

 

“Oh.” They glance at each other again, whatever unspoken communication they share continuing, and Mary Margaret ventures, “So…more magic you couldn’t control?”

 

“Sometimes we try to keep everyone alive and we  _can’t_ ,” David says knowingly. “There are those who would rather push us away and die rather than cooperate. You can’t blame yourself.” 

 

“I can’t…” She looks from one of them to the other, half taken aback, half frustrated. They smile back patiently, so absolutely serene in their confidence that she is  _good_ , that she would never let them down with a cold-blooded murder like the one she’s pretty sure that she’d committed the night before. Walsh had been smirking and she’d known in the back of her mind that Henry had already been safe but she hadn’t cared, she’d just wanted him to hurt and be afraid like she’s been afraid since she’d gotten here. 

 

And that isn’t Charming family behavior, so her parents can’t comprehend it at all. Because they’re the heroes. (The  _victors_ , something within her mind corrects her, and the victors write the storybooks where they are heroes. She quashes that thought immediately because Regina was a fucking sociopath before Henry demanded her to be more, wasn’t she?) And their stories are meant to be heroic.

 

“We’ve all had to slay an enemy or two,” Mary Margaret says gently. “When we stormed Regina’s castle, we must’ve taken down dozens of knights. It’s what you do at war.” 

 

“ _You_ killed people?” Emma repeats. She hadn’t really thought about battles between people, imagined ogres or demons doing Regina’s bidding while actual human beings fought with the good guys. It had all seemed very childlike, like a scene from Narnia instead of a real body count, not her simple and idealistic parents actually spilling blood.

 

“We  _saved_  people. Sometimes there’s no choice in how you do it.” David puts a hand on her shoulder. “We’re proud of you, Emma, you know that, right? We love you.” 

 

“She’s the savior.” Mary Margaret sits back in her chair, still smiling, and Emma doesn’t understand how they’ve gotten to this, how she’d killed someone last night and they’re deeming it praiseworthy. “This is what she does.” 

 

And it’s easy to see their warmth and pride and wonder if maybe that’s all last night had been, protecting the people she loves at any cost. Mary Margaret and David are  _good_  and they believe in her, they believe in what she’s done and they would so quickly accept her for it. And what does she know about good and evil when there’s a war on?  _Different world, different standards_. This town counts on her to protect them, and yesterday she’d gotten rid of Zelena’s right-hand man. That’s the important detail, not how she’d done it or why. 

 

 _Bullshit_ , says a voice deep down, the one of Emma Swan who’d had no one to guide her through her darkest decisions. But that’s an Emma Swan who hadn’t been a savior loaded with power and on a mission to keep more people safe than she’d known in her entire adult life. That Emma Swan can’t speak for her anymore. “Yeah, it is,” she says, grinning at her parents, and she doesn’t know how it had been more complicated than that. “Every now and then I do have my moments.” 

 

And honestly? She doesn’t know if what she’d done was right or wrong but she knows it had been necessary, and that’s what matters, not recriminations for whatever had been motivating her at that moment. And Mary Margaret and David need to look at her and be proud, need to believe that she’s the savior they want and not so unstable that she’d nearly become the Dark One last night. She can fight with herself again and again about what had happened last night- about hurting Regina and doing it all in front of Henry, and that’s the only part that  _should_ matter- but for the people who have faith in her, she only needs to be strong. 

 

She stands up, stretching against the counter. “Hey, come by Regina’s later, okay? So Henry can meet you properly. I’ve got to head out again now. There’s someone else I need to talk to about this.” 

 

“Hook?” Mary Margaret asks, and she’s got that glint in her eye that she’d walked around with from the moment Neal had come to town until he’d died in her arms. “You two have been getting closer lately, haven’t you?” 

 

“Physically? No. Romantically?” She keeps her face straight as Mary Margaret perks up. “No.” Hook is…very interested, yeah, but not the kind of person who’d appeal to her after her body-parts-in-the-freezer bad boy stage. Maybe she has a bad girl thing now. Regina must have some leather somewhere in her closet, doesn’t she ride horses? Maybe some high-heeled boots. Or those Evil Queen dresses. And her freezer has frozen vegetables and pizza in it because Emma's somehow managed to win over the only bad girl out there who’s equally as much of a mom as she is scourge of thousands. 

 

“I know that look,” comes the teasing voice. Mary Margaret has already bounced back and she’s grinning at Emma as though Emma’s given something more away than absolute disinterest. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” 

 

She straightens, noticing suddenly that there’s a smile playing at her mouth. “Right. Him. Sure.” She licks at her lips and leans back again. “I actually have to go talk to someone else. Another man.”

 

“Oh?” 

 

“Single dad, good with a bow, has this kind of woodsy odor about…” She wiggles her fingers. “Was supposed to be keeping an eye on Zelena’s house last night and never called?” 

 

“Robin Hood.” 

 

“That's the guy.” Whatever smile there’d been on her face evaporates at that name, and she feels even more suspicion niggling at her. When she’d awakened this morning she’d remembered their agreement and remembered no backup, no warning that Zelena had been up to something, nothing at all.

 

And there’s something about the guy that rubs her the wrong way, sets her on edge even when she knows he isn’t lying and there isn’t any reason to distrust him. Maybe it’s just because Regina’s so cagey about him and Emma  _hates_  that most of all. Who the hell is this guy?

 

“Much,” Robin says, and she blinks at him. 

 

“That’s an answer?” She’d charged into his camp three minutes ago and demanded to see him, and he’d pulled her into a cabin and closed the door behind them. Her fingers tap a tense beat against the butt of her gun as she waits. 

 

“It’s a name,” he corrects her. “Much was our sentry last night. Alas, he brought some…ah, sustenance for the long night ahead.” 

 

“So he was too drunk to see a witch attempt some pretty suspicious behavior. Convenient,” she mutters.

 

Robin’s brow furrows. “For Zelena, perhaps. Not for us.” He sounds genuinely confused, and she pushes her lower lip between her teeth and then frees it twice as she waits for him to offer more. He doesn’t disappoint. “And what he did tell me…he must have been too deep in his cups to have seen anything useful.” 

 

His eyes are wary and there’s something else there, too. He’s standing two steps back from a polite distance and his fingers are running along the edge of his crossbow, cautious as she is with her gun. “It’s odd, actually. He babbled on about smoke and a scuffle and he seemed to think that he’d seen the sheriff of this town tearing out hearts and attacking her allies.” She stiffens. He offers her a genial, loaded smile. “I told him to sober up and stop spreading tales.” 

 

Her jaw works under her skin. “Good.”

 

He’s still smiling at her and she says, “Did anyone else hear about this?” 

 

“Just me.” He places his bow down on the table beside them, a gesture of goodwill that she doesn’t mirror. “I assure you, I won’t be spreading around any information a halfwit drunkard offered me.” He pauses for a moment. “The queen? Really?” 

 

She’s moving lightning-quick across the distance between them before he says another word, pressing her fingers to his temples and focusing hard. She doesn’t remember how she’d taken Henry’s memories the first time- she’d just  _willed_ it, desired it so until suddenly Henry had been staring at her in confusion and the crisis had been averted. Now she draws forth all her fear and anger and resentment and it’s as though Robin Hood’s mind falls open in front of her, hers to manipulate as she sees fit.

 

“Much remembered nothing,” she whispers at him, and his eyes are glazed. He has to forget this, can’t be thinking of her as anything but reliable. She thinks of David and Mary Margaret’s pride, of a whole town counting on her to be everything they need, and she can’t let them down. Not with this. It doesn’t matter to anyone but Regina and Henry and Zelena and it’s no one else’s business. 

 

“Nothing,” he echoes, and she feels the allure of this power tingling at her skin, the potential for answers at last.

 

“Tell me what happened when you met Regina for the first time,” she murmurs.

 

His eyes shift from side to side, like he’s having a waking dream. “I saved her life. From a flying monkey.” 

 

Her eyebrows shoot up. “What?” 

 

He continues as though he’s in a trance. “She saved Roland from another one. We journeyed together into her castle to lower the shields around her kingdom so Snow White and her people could enter. She mixed a potion–“ 

 

“This is the missing year,” she whispers, awed. “You remember the missing year?” He stares blankly at her, the faintest awareness beginning to return to his eyes, and she seizes another opportunity and says quickly, verbalizing suspicions she hasn’t fully formed yet on a whim, “Are you working for Zelena?” 

 

“I…” He blinks for the first time since she’d wiped his memory and she backs up, dropping her hands to her side. “Sorry, what was the question?” 

 

She smiles. It’s sharp-edged and uncomfortable. “Just about what you were doing during the missing year.”

 

“I wish I could tell you,” he says, and there’s no deceit in his voice. Whatever she’d uncovered, it isn’t something he has any access to. “I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.” 

 

“Yeah. Thanks.” She turns to leave and then pauses as though struck by an idea. One year back in the bounty hunting business and she’s relearned her disarming smile like a pro. “Hey, do you mind sending Much in, just so I can ask him about last night?” 

 

“He didn’t remember anything when we spoke, but maybe you can get some more out of him,” Robin says, genial now without the edge. “You are skilled at this, from what I’ve heard.” 

 

“Maybe I can,” she says, smiling back at him without a hint of malice, and as long as she can think of this as a simple con, it’s the easiest thing in the world. The con to prove to the town that Emma Swan has this covered.

 

That’s what everyone needs from her. Stable Emma the Savior who doesn’t slip up and murder the bad guys because they fucked with her emotions one time too many. Sheriff Swan who’s mastering magic and keeping the evil queen under control and is certainly not snuggling up next to her at night. Their rulers’ daughter who is as pure and noble as they believe the Charmings to be and definitely not harboring more terrifyingly acute resentment than can be healthy.

 

Maybe if she can keep up the lie for long enough, she might even believe it.

 

+

 

Much proves to be a quick study, hungover and all too eager to block out the night before, and she heads off with only a final dark glare at Robin where he’s bouncing his son on his lap across the camp. Something about him is  _wrong_ in a way that she can’t describe, and she’s uneasy whenever she thinks about him. Especially when she thinks about him going on some mission with Regina in a year they can’t remember, just the two of them, and him saving Regina’s life.

 

She narrows her eyes and vows to return to the camp another time to get the answers she needs from Robin. It had been all too easy to pry answers from his mind, so simple that she has no idea why Regina wouldn’t have done that with all the villagers who’d hidden Mary Margaret from her over the years.

 

 _Unless she couldn’t_. The thought strikes her and she remembers that she’s supposed to be stronger than Regina, even if the other woman had easily knocked her back every time she’d tried to fight her. There are some things she can do that Regina can’t.

 

It feels wrong, somehow, being gratified at that knowledge, but Emma chews her lip and kicks her way through the underbrush and tries not to think about it. She and Regina are a team. Anything new she can do might be something new that  _they_ can do, and even Emma’s own magic seems as drawn to Regina as it is to her. 

 

And what they can do together… She perks up, spotting soft lavender between two trees ahead, and she moves between them to take in the garden from the night before. She knows that her magic is supposed to be blue but this is almost all purples even though it had been her magic they’d been shedding.  _Regina. Regina everywhere_. Soft moss and tall flowers and little purple-blue berries peeking out from bushes around her.

 

She sinks back against the tree she’d been thrown into just hours before and closes her eyes, sniffing a distinct smell like apples because of fucking course Regina’s magic would smell like apples. She smirks to herself and before she knows it, that now-familiar smile is tugging at her lips.

 

She’s too old and cynical to be lovestruck over some new… _thing_ , even if it’s with the mother of her son and she thinks she might’ve moved into Regina's house last night. Living the cliche, apparently. But there’s a peace to their moments together like quiet conversations in Neverland and sitting in the Bug at a stakeout and she thinks that’s all she needs, really. Peace. Serenity in this quiet garden they’d made together with their magic. 

 

Henry and Regina and whatever they manage to build as a family. They’re her tiny garden in the middle of the woods, her oasis from all the demands and hurt that have been layered onto her with every day spent in this town. They’re  _hers_ , a secret comfort that remains with her even as she blunders through saviorhood and the town’s expectations of her.

 

 _I’ll tell you something true, Henry. This. This is the only truth I’ve got now._ She wiggles her feet out of her boots and socks until they’re perched on the moss, the magic that brushes against the soles of her feet warm and safe to her skin.

 

“I thought I’d find you here,” says a smooth voice, and it jerks her out of her reverie even as she recognizes it.

 

“Regina.” 

 

Regina smiles at her, and it’s…different than usual, not quite guarded but not with the unconcealed affection that she’s grown accustomed to. Emma shifts on her bare feet, wondering if she shouldn’t have left Regina alone in bed this morning. Maybe she’d fucked this up already. “How are you feeling?” 

 

“I’m fine. I told my parents about last night. They were…” She pauses, feeling suddenly guilty about explaining just how supportive they’d been when they’re usually one step away from mass hysteria whenever Regina steps out of line. “They’re coping well. Hey, where’s Henry?” 

 

Regina swoops closer, seemingly unbothered by her uncertainty about her parents. “He’s back at my house. My spells are still up to keep him away from Zelena, and I don’t think he’ll be calling Walsh again anytime soon.” She barks out a shaky laugh and Emma flushes and stares down at the moss below her.

 

“Oh, no,” Regina croons, and suddenly she’s right in front of Emma, her eyes not quite loving but very hungry. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Walsh was only a road bump, inconsequential to me. And Zelena,” she adds, almost as an afterthought. “We’re hardly at the main event.” 

 

There’s something  _off_ about Regina, something that doesn’t quite click right in her mind, and maybe it’s just the creepy concept of a Regina who sleeps in in the morning and nothing more but it has Emma uneasy.

 

She contemplates the moss and two gentle fingers move to lift her chin. “No need to worry, pet,” Regina whispers, millimeters away, and it all connects in a shining moment of realization.

 

Regina would  _never_ leave Henry alone in her house so soon after she’d gotten him back. 

 

She shoves Regina away just as their lips touch and the other woman’s eyes go wide as she stumbles back against a thorny bush. And her eyes grow wider still until there’s laughter in her gaze and a puff of green smoke and now it’s Zelena opposite her, batting away the bush and smirking at Emma’s glare. “Well, now. You’re not quite as stupid as you look, are you?” 

 

“You’re not as smart as you think,” she shoots back, reaching for her gun.

 

Zelena’s nose wrinkles. “That again?” She waves her hand and the weapon is sailing from Emma’s hands into her own, and she examines it disinterestedly and drops it on the ground. “Where’s that intoxicating magic you had last night?”

 

She gathers it as best as she can, feels it spring to attention and hover within her, waiting to emerge as she challenges, “You really want to see it?” 

 

But Zelena only laughs, unintimidated. “Come now, pet. You must know that you’re meaningless to me. Only another toy for Regina to use against me.” She twirls her hand, the dagger appearing in it. So Gold hadn’t escaped last night, not in time. “I use this dagger to command my weapon. What does Regina use for you, I wonder?” But she’s leering suggestively at Emma, the implication clear on her face.

 

Emma wipes savagely at her lips where they’d touched Zelena’s. “What the fuck is your problem? Why are you even here in this town other than to be a pain in my ass?” 

 

“That spell can’t be replicated.” Zelena sighs, theatric. “I’m no longer interested in Regina’s boy.” 

 

“ _Our_ boy.” 

 

“Well.” Zelena tosses her hair over her shoulder, turning away. “You’re so very irrelevant, though.” It cuts when it  _shouldn’t_ , when she doesn’t give a damn what Zelena thinks about her when she has an entire town that thinks of her as their hero. So what if the enemy she’s supposed to be saving them from doesn’t think she’s worthy? 

 

 _I’m going to destroy you_ , she thinks, and her magic springs to her hands, slashing out at the trees on either side of the gap that Zelena is walking toward. And Emma snaps after her, “Then why are you following me around?”

 

“Tell my sister that I will take her little town from her and have her annihilated for it,” Zelena says instead of responding. “If this is all the kingdom she’s left for me, I will have it.” 

 

Emma grits her teeth. “I’m not your message girl.” 

 

Zelena shakes her head, a glowing green shield reflecting Emma’s magic back at her. “Well, you’re not much use beyond that, are you?” She turns around, seizing a flash of blue and opening her hand around it. “All that power,” she says silkily, eyes hungry as Regina’s gets around her magic sometimes. “Yet so unimpressive. Regina’s pet project with nothing to offer beyond that.” 

 

Emma can feel redness climbing its way up her neck, frustration and fury at being dismissed so easily burning hot under her skin. “I’m the savior,” she says, and it had seemed so  _vital_ when she’d thought it earlier but now it’s just impotence, a child lashing out at being deemed inconsequential. And she has a dozen memories of being three and five and ten and fifteen and standing in doorways, watching cars of parents driving off, and the same frustration and fury carrying her until the next time.

 

It never stops. It’s never enough. And her muscles are taut and her mouth is bared and she won’t let Zelena toss her aside so easily. No more.

 

Zelena turns once to sneer at her. “ _Lovely_  garden,” she says mockingly, and disappears.

 

Blue energy hums around Emma, spreading down her spine and to her legs and flat to the ground, whirling around her against the soft moss and flowers until thorny blue weeds emerge from the dirt, growing higher and higher around her until she’s in the midst of a forest of weeds, trapping her feet in place and scratching at her arms and some so high that she can’t see any of the purple that had been there before. Something within her is savagely pleased at that and she shudders at the resentment that builds there from  _Regina’s pet project_ and she won’t give in to Zelena, won’t let her prod at any more sore spots until they blossom.

 

Regina is not her enemy. Zelena is. And she’s going to protect Regina, protect Henry and this town and bring Zelena to her knees as easily as she did Walsh. She feels cold satisfaction at the thought of him weak in front of her, pleading for his life, and when she imagines Zelena in the same position, she smiles hard and walks away, the weeds sinking back into the ground with every step toward Regina's.

 

Her good mood doesn’t abate when she comes inside and sees Henry in front of a TV she hadn’t known existed, playing video games that she’d thought were theirs before she’d taken that potion. “Hey, kid.” 

 

He glances at her, and there’s that tension she’d forgotten about from earlier, thick with strain and words they’re still not ready for. “Grandparents?” he repeats as though they’ve been talking all along, and she says, “Yeah. Uh…Mary Margaret and David. It’s complicated.” 

 

She rambles for a while about them and Henry doesn’t stop wrestling lizard-men and he doesn’t look at her again, but he doesn’t interrupt, either, and she knows he’s listening even when he doesn’t respond. “So anyway, I guess it’s kind of screwed up, and oh yeah- that guy from last night with the dagger? He’s also your grandfather. Neal’s dad, anyway. He was really helpful rescuing you from Pan, he didn’t have a choice last…” Her voice trails off when Henry pauses his game, and he twists so quickly that she thinks it might be Zelena behind them until she follows his gaze to Regina, descending the stairs at last.

 

“I heard you come in,” Regina murmurs when she joins them. She’s wearing the kind of suit that she hasn’t worn since her Madam Mayor days and a tall pair of heels, armor that Emma recognizes, and for a moment she indulges in the thought of Regina hiding in her room, too terrified to leave it and face Henry until she has backup. “Hello.” 

 

They stare at each other, Regina’s eyes communicating gratitude and whatever last resentment had remained within Emma evaporating at the trust in Regina’s eyes. “Hi,” she says, and her hand slides over to where Regina’s hand lies across the back of the couch.

 

“Hi,” another voice echoes. Henry is watching Regina with undisguised curiosity and Regina is drawn to him at once, eyes lighting up and smile springing onto her face as Henry blushes and smiles back, tentative like the shyness of a new beginning. And Emma’s always warm when she thinks about them, rebuilding their relationship one step at a time. 

 

It’s what she’d dreamed of for years when she’d thought of adoption and mothers and home for herself. It’s what she’d dreamed of for years when it had been all she’d known about her son’s future. It’s what she still dreams about even now and she feels guilty for still longing for that, to be Regina or Henry and not Emma, not a Charming, and that eyes that swim with that kind of love for her don’t feel weighted with expectations of who she can’t become.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be better next time, I promise. Lots of technical difficulties last week. 
> 
> We're about...midway through the fic right now, I think. Making headway!

**xv. hesitation**

 

_Ma_ , Henry decides, watching them as they stand together and then take uneasy steps apart while Killian squints at them.  _Ma and Mom_. In this impossible world where magic is real and his memories are a lie, somehow this is what he’s hanging onto for dear life. Coping with the fact that now he has two moms. Or…a Ma and a Mom. 

 

It feels sacrilegious to strip away Mayor Mills’s title when he doesn’t even _remember_ her, when _Mom_ is all he knows of this childhood in Storybrooke within a fairytale, and Mo- _Ma_ can totally pass as a Ma instead. It sounds kind of like Emma and it’s kind of casual and he’s always (always? for the last year?) felt like they’re more of a team than Mom-and-son-and-nothing-else. So Ma it is. 

 

He blinks down at the storybook that enumerates Mayor Mi– that enumerates Mom’s evils, one after the other, and sinks back down to the bottom of the steps, flipping through the pages again to stare at the gloating queen with an uncanny resemblance to Mom. It all seems impossible, knowing her as he does, and yet…it’s real. They both have admitted as much, M- Mom with so much tension as she’d said it that Ma had leaned over and put a hand on her shoulder, casual but calming. 

 

They’ve been weird since that night, stumbling around each other while they speak openly about Zelena and the year they’d missed and him, coming to blows over tiny decisions and sneaking around corners to make out like a couple of gross teenagers when they think he isn’t watching. Henry had rolled his eyes and read his book and waited until they’d  _finally_ agreed that Zelena isn’t after him anymore so he can have some time alone.

 

When he had succeeded to convince them, it had been with wide, sad eyes and his very best puppy face and _I just want to be free to wander around again, okay?_ , and Ma had shaken her head and smirked but Mom’s whole face had softened and the supposed evil queen is apparently the weak link _and_ the one who makes the decisions in this new family unit. Excellent.

 

He flips through the pages of the book again, frowning at the descriptions of some of the pictures. _The queen’s guards execute a village. The queen curses the kingdom. The queen plans to kill Snow White_. It’s not Mayor Mills. Mom. It can’t be her. The book never even calls her by name, how can it possibly be Mom who’s so… _evil_?

 

He rubs his eyes and sighs, shutting the book to glance up to where Ma is talking in a wheedling tone at an unimpressed Killian. "I have a way to flush out Zelena's monkeys and I need Regina for it. It's just one afternoon."

 

"It's been just one afternoon for days now with you two alone." Killian puts on a face, outthrust-lip and lidded eyes, like he thinks Ma might be sympathetic now. She stares at him. "It's nothing personal- I do like you, lad-" He gives Henry a grin and Mom's hand moves to his shoulder. He looks up to share a long-suffering look with her, but she's instead staring at his book, something unreadable on her face, and she carefully removes her hand a moment later. Henry chews on his lip. 

 

"I'm a pirate, not a chaperone!" Killian is still insisting, and Henry blinks with recognition. A pirate with one hand. Ma's been sending him out with _Captain Hook_? But Killian doesn't look much like the scourge of children everywhere, just a cranky thirty-something who isn't aware that Ma's taken. 

 

Killian's voice lowers and he reaches for Ma's arm. "I'm willing to be here for you, however you need me, Swan. But there's only so much I can-"

 

Mom heaves a loud sigh, enough to cut Killian off, and he blinks at her with sudden alarm. Henry looks up and sees her eyes glinting with impatience and...well, murder. For the first time he can see the evil queen in them, dangerous enough to smite villages, and he glances toward Ma nervously. 

 

She's shrugging off Killian's arm and smirking at Mom. "Let's talk in the kitchen, okay?" She virtually drags Killian into the next room, Mom glowering behind them and Killian looking perplexed. Mom shifts, angling herself exactly to the spot in the foyer where she can see into the far part of the kitchen. 

 

Henry opens the book, skipping to a close-up of the evil queen's face, and he stares down at it. "She's just getting him to do what she wants," he says, eyes running across the text on the opposite page. “She doesn’t mean it."

 

Mom sighs again. "She can do whatever she wants," she says, voice frosty. "And I'm sure she will."

 

"She's crazy about you. It's pretty gross." They're always touching, grazing hands against arms and pressing up against each other, side-to-side, whenever they're sitting on the couch or standing at the counter. Ma isn't really demonstrative with her affections but she hovers in Mom's orbit all the time like a bodyguard or maybe a puppy, close where she'd only ever been distant with Walsh. 

 

_Don't think about Walsh_. It's a struggle not to remember that moment, eyes shut tight but the screaming still loud in his ears, and then the body he'd seen as he'd clutched Mom's arm and they'd staggered from the barn. 

 

He'd seen the same danger in Ma's eyes as he sees now in Mom's, like they're containing something dark and powerful until it _bursts_  into a hail of destruction, and he swallows hard and stares down at the queen again. "This was you, right?"

 

Mom's jaw tightens and she moves from her spot to sit beside him on the steps, arms stiff at her side. "It's a poor artistic rendering."

 

He swallows, not quite sure he wants the answer from her, and whispers, "Is it true?" She's so still behind him, face sad and tired, and he tries, tentative and aloud for the second time, as though this one might give him a new answer. "M-Mom. Is it true?"

 

Her eyes gleam at the name, startled and wet and afraid, and she says, "It's heavily biased. But not...not entirely inaccurate."

 

"Oh." He swallows. "Why did you do it?"

 

"I was...grieving and trapped for a long time. Then angry for even longer." She laughs, self-deprecating. “A lot of it seemed just at the time. I think I lost myself for a while there." There are stirrings of frustration and regret in her voice, and he wonders if the frustration is stronger than the regret. He wonders if she's really found herself again. He wonders if Ma got lost that night with Walsh, too, and if it's something you can ever really break free from. 

 

Ma comes back as though summoned by his thoughts, leading Killian and looking smug, and Mom's eyebrows settle into a scowl. "Thank you, Killian. We'll all meet up here later, okay?" She's back to her position beside Mom, standing close enough to the staircase that the bottom of her leg is up against Mom's, and Mom leans forward, mollified. "Henry, text us every half hour or we'll come charging in to your rescue and embarrass you in front of Ruby, got it?"

 

"Mo- Maaa!" he whines, and Ma's eyebrows rise at the name. He licks his lips, suddenly unsure that today is the best day to introduce a new name to her. They're still uncertain when Mom isn't there as a buffer, too much between them with Henry's false memories and Walsh and Ma's attempt to take him away from Storybrooke. He doesn't know where they're going to be after all this. He doesn't know where he wants them to be, when he's still angry and scared and Ma had lied so much that it still hurts to think about what he could have lost. 

 

He follows Killian from the room, glancing back for just long enough to see Ma sink down beside Mom on the stairs and bury her face in her hands. Mom touches her knee, tentative but still with dark eyes, and she’s beginning to speak as Henry shuts the door.

 

_Ma’s in trouble_ , he decides, and grins to himself for a moment before the worry seeps in. He doesn’t know Mom, doesn’t know what she’s capable of, and he doesn’t know how she’d react to–

 

_No,_ he decides firmly. He _does_ know Mom, even if he didn’t know the person she’d been before. He knows the Mom who helps him with his homework and talked to him about her mom and his dad and who’d held him close when things had gone wrong. This is Mom. Whoever the Evil Queen had been, it isn’t Mom anymore.

 

But he still bites his lip and asks Killian, “How did you meet my mom?” 

 

“We met in the Enchan-“ He stops. “We met on a voyage,” he corrects himself. No one had bothered to apprise Killian of the change in Henry’s memories, and Henry smirks to himself and listens to Killian fumbling to rewrite history. “She chained me all up.” 

 

He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. Henry wrinkles his nose. “Gross.” 

 

“You’ll understand someday, lad.” Killian pats his shoulder. “She was stunning. Dangerous. A bit unstable. Absolutely striking.” 

 

“Wait, so do you have a thing for both my moms?” He thinks Killian would have a harder time winning Mom over than even Ma, but it’d be funny to watch. Especially Ma. He’s never seen Ma jealous before but he bets that she’d break things over it.

 

“ _Have a thing?_ ” he asks indignantly. Then, "Both your…” Comprehension filters onto his face. “Ah, no. I was talking about Swan there. When I first met Regina, she was…stunning. Dangerous. A bit unstable.” Killian’s brow furrows. “Do you have your memories back, lad?” 

 

“Do you get chased by crocodiles and kill Lost Boys?” Henry challenges in return.

 

“Only the naughty ones.” Killian gives him a smile that’s supposed to be creepy, maybe. He looks a little constipated though and Henry snickers to himself.

 

Killian looks pleased with it, missing the sentiment altogether. “In all fairness, Regina was never all that vicious to me. But I’m sure you know the tales in that book of yours. She was quite the tyrant in her hunt for Snow White.” 

 

“But now Snow White is her friend,” Henry says uncertainly.

 

Killian shrugs. “I don’t track the womanly dynamics there. I’m here for one thing only.” He pats Henry on the shoulder again, a little rougher. 

 

“Ma. Emma.” 

 

“That’s right.” 

 

Henry steers them around a corner toward the beach. “You think you have a shot with her?” 

 

“I know I do.” Killian's all swagger and confidence, like he genuinely believes what he’s saying, and Henry thinks about Ma watching Mom cook, leaning over the counter and trying to swipe sauce out of a stew while it boils on the stove. _Ow!_ and a burnt finger in her mouth and Mom smacking her with a wooden spoon, _stop contaminating my stew_ , and Ma’s eyes sparkling defiantly when she goes back for another swipe. 

 

“Have you seen anyone else in her orbit she gives the time of day to?” Killian points out.

 

Henry shrugs, nonchalant. “Just her family, I guess.” 

 

They’re getting closer to the beach, and he takes a shortcut in the woods to the right of it to follow the path. Killian frowns. “Where are you off to?” 

 

“There’s a park here.” He breaks through the woods and spots it. It’s small, a few structures arrayed around a tall jungle gym, but there are kids everywhere, gathered on benches and sitting on top of the jungle gym and hanging out on tree branches. He’s watched them from afar, envious of how they’d been able to hang around town without adults breathing down their backs, and now he knows that he’d once been one of them.

 

He smiles at Killian. “Listen, I’m going to be fine here. Promise. Ma needs you, right? You should go to her.” It’s sneaky and Ma will probably freak out at him later but maybe she’ll get it, too. He can’t live in a cage. And god, he misses having friends so much.

 

Killian doesn’t need any more convincing, and he’s off before Henry sees the girl who’d called him by name once looking down at him curiously from the top of the jungle gym. He climbs up it to join her. “Hi.”

 

“Hi,” she says cautiously.

 

“I don’t have my memories back,” he says quickly. “But I know that I’m…I know about this town now. And my mom. And fairytales.” 

 

The girl relaxes in a moment, the boy beside her nudging her and grinning at him. “Cool. I’m Hansel.”

 

“And you’re Gretel,” Henry guesses.

 

“We’re Ava and Nick,” the girl corrects, glancing at what must be her brother. “In this world, anyway. You can call us whatever you want to.” She nods to the two boys crouched at her feet, one closer to Henry’s age and the other much younger. “That’s Adi. He was a Lost Boy before Snow White brought them all here. And Roland is from this curse.”

 

Adi glances up, recognition in his eyes when they scan over Henry. “Emma Swan brought us here, not Snow White. She promised us mothers.” 

 

“Sorry about that, dude.” Ava gives him a little kick in the back. “My papa adopted Adi,” she explains. “There wasn’t much of a choice, when we were all sent back to the Enchanted Forest and everyone was split up. You found yourself new parents or no one took care of you.” 

 

It sounds kind of dire to Henry, but all four kids look pretty uninterested in the implications there, and he tries instead to ask, “So what fairytale were you from?” 

 

“Fairytale?” Adi shakes his head. “I wasn’t a fairytale. Peter Pan’s shadow took me, just like you.” 

 

“Like me? I haven’t gotten all the explanations yet,” Henry adds swiftly, watching suspicion dawn in Ava’s eyes. “Just about Zelena and my…and Regina. My mom. Do you know her?” He keeps his expression neutral, thinking back to pages in the storybook that he’d only skimmed.

 

Ava looks guarded again. “The Evil Queen? She sent us away from our father in the Enchanted Forest. We didn’t see him again until the curse and Emma.” Henry stomach roils, like these are conversations that will only hurt him more. But he needs to know the truth, even if it’s unpleasant. Even if Mom is exactly as bad as the book says. Ava goes on. “But she also found us again after the second curse.” She shrugs. “She and Snow White’s prince stumbled upon us and brought us back to Papa.” 

 

“I like Regina,” says the boy they’d called Roland. He’s absorbed in his lollipop and seems unaware of the rest of their conversation. “She tells me stories about her castle. And Henry. Are you Henry?” 

 

“I’m–“ He’s caught by sudden confusion. “Wait. The second curse? But Mom said that no one remembered that.” 

 

Adi puts a finger to his forehead. “Some of the kids started remembering things a few days ago. No one knows why.” 

 

The curse is straining at its seams somehow, and he feels a fierce desire that it free him, too, that somehow he can break out of it all on his own and _remember_. Remember his past, remember his family, remember the mother Emma is sure he’d forgiven. And all he has now is hearsay and a book that Mom calls biased. “Did you say Mom found you after the second curse?” 

 

Ava shakes her head. “Snow White’s prince found us. The Queen was only with him.” 

 

“That’s not true,” Nicholas objects. “I remember when they came to us. David said that Mayor Mills went looking for us on her own when she heard that Papa had been separated from us again.”

 

Ava looks uncertain. Henry says, “I’m still trying to figure out how I felt about her.” 

 

“You talked about her in Neverland,” Adi says. “When you spoke. You talked about your mothers and how they were going to save you. Everyone wanted…well. When your mothers came, we saw why you’d leave Peter Pan.” He sighs, low and wistful, and Ava kicks him again. 

 

“Shut up. You love us.” She turns back to Henry. “We didn’t really know her as your mother. But she seemed like an okay mom. And she didn’t go around trying to kill people too much after the first curse broke.” She shrugs. “I don’t like her,” she announces, and looks guilty about it. “Sorry.” 

 

“It’s okay.” If he’d thought that he’d been confused before, it’s even worse now. Maybe she’s the villain. Maybe she’s the hero. Whatever it is, the only thing he’s sure of is that she loves him.

 

And he loves her, too. Maybe. He doesn’t really know yet. He doesn’t even know her.

 

“My other mom, though. Emma. She’s a hero, right?” He gets three sets of enthusiastic nods from that, vigorous enough that even Roland looks up at them in perplexment. 

 

He doesn’t think that heroes kill people like Ma had, and he wonders about how easily the other kids seem to accept her like this. They don’t know. They _can’t_ know, he understands suddenly, watching the way that Ava’s eyes shine as she tells him about Ma finding her father and breaking the curse and fighting against someone named Cora. These people count on Ma to be a force for good in the town. And he’s the only one aside from Mom who knows what had happened that night.

 

He manages a smile and says, “I think so, too,” and hopes very hard that he has nothing to hide.

 

* * *

**xvi. operation**

 

“I had to get him alone.” Emma is following behind her, half pleading as they climb into the station’s patrol car. “Stop being so…” 

 

“So?” Regina slams the car door behind Emma and swings around to her side. “So what?” 

 

“I had to get him away from you because you’d probably have killed him if he’d looked at me the wrong way! And then who’d look after Henry?” Emma sounds exasperated and Regina starts the car, jerking it down the road with a little less finesse than she would normally.

 

Emma crashes against her. “Did you forget a seatbelt?” Regina demands. “Is this the example you’ve been setting for my son?” 

 

She gets an outraged glare for that and suspects she may be a _teensy_ bit irrational right now. They’d sent Henry out with that…that _miscreant_ , and she can’t erase the smugness on both Emma’s and Hook's faces from her mind. It’s not…this is something _real_ , something they’re supposed to keep. And Emma would dismiss it as nothing for a favor from the man who purports to be in love with her.

 

But now Emma is staring straight ahead, hurt and silent and probably just as angry as she is. “Buckle up,” Regina snaps, because she doesn’t know how else to mend things between them. “We can’t afford to have you die now.”

 

It’s clumsy and a backhanded apology, _we_ and the statement of _don’t die_ , and Emma huffs and buckles her seatbelt. “Why are you driving? Do you even know how to drive?” 

 

“I’ve been driving longer than you’ve been alive!” She swerves hard to miss Archie, who’s walking Pongo across the street and waving at them.

 

Emma’s eyebrows knit together. “Okay, we both know that isn’t true. By…at least one day.” 

 

She grumbles something incoherent and probably insulting so Emma will read her tone, no effort required, and the tension levels in the car remains dangerously high even with that. “I don’t see why we need him, anyway,” she says sulkily. 

 

“We need him to keep Henry safe. And he does do that, even if he thinks it’ll…” Emma hesitates. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. The important thing is that Henry is safe.” 

 

“The werewolf is just as capable of ensuring that. And she doesn’t require nearly as much… _mutual interest_ from you.” She’s running over fewer corners now, which means that she’s calming down. That, or they’re getting closer to the edge of town where there are no sidewalks at all.

 

“Ruby isn’t as good a shot as Hook.” 

 

“Ah, yes.” She smiles dangerously. “I remember how efficiently he shot Belle last year.”

 

“Really? That’s what you’re going with? That _he_ hurt Belle?” Emma sounds disbelieving and Regina’s about to point out that Belle had been well taken care of in her castle, that she’d only ever held her prisoner and hadn’t tried killing her, but she suspects that Emma will take that about as well as Rumple had when she’d mentioned it in Neverland. She rolls her eyes internally as Emma slumps. “Regina, can we just…not? Please? We got what we wanted. I don’t need some jealousy crap from you when you _know_ all I want is…” She shifts, uncomfortable, and doesn’t finish the sentence.

 

Regina pulls the car to a halt just behind Leroy’s truck. “And what? You want your own personal Sidney?” She doesn’t care about Hook, doesn’t care about what he thinks or what he believes Emma owes him. Emma owes him _nothing_ no matter how many times he watches Henry or Emma takes him along on missions. It’s not as though she has any problems with using Hook for their purposes. But an Emma who would carelessly manipulate someone who supposedly loves her into doing what she wants is…

 

Too much like Regina herself _._ She sighs and leaves the car as Emma slouches down lower into the passenger seat. She looks…angry. Stubborn. Frustrated. Vaguely guilty.

 

By the time she falls into step beside Regina, though, she only looks determined. “You guys set?” 

 

There are four dwarves arrayed around the town line. Regina squints at them, trying to recall which is which based on their Enchanted Forest names. Leroy is Grumpy, of course. Sneezy the pharmacist. Doc. Happy. “We’re ready for this,” Leroy says.

 

Sneezy sniffles into his handkerchief. “If it’s the only way,” he says, twitching a little. 

 

Four brave little dwarves, and Emma hasn’t even told her what the plan is yet. She hadn’t wanted to talk about it in front of Henry and they’d been distracted on the way here, and now she smiles tightly at Happy (whose ever-present smile falters at the Evil Queen’s eyes on him) and waits for Emma to explain herself.

 

But Emma’s focus is on the dwarves, her eyes hard and dangerous, and she says, “We need to stop Zelena. And that means getting rid of her messengers.” 

 

“Not the Dark One, though. Right?” Sneezy looks nervous again. 

 

Leroy slaps him. “We’re loyal to Snow White and her family! We’ll do whatever it takes, Emma,” he says, and he’s turning around and walking to the town line before Regina can process.

 

“What are they doing?” she hisses.

 

Emma looks startled. “Oh, crap. Throw up a shield!” she orders, just as the other dwarves join Grumpy. There’s a loud screeching noise and Regina’s magic emerges automatically, blocking a swarm of flying monkeys as the dwarves step over the line. Again, again, again. The monkeys remain as new ones appear, screeching protests and scraping at the bottom of her barrier as the dwarves stare up at them. 

 

She’d disregarded the dwarves long ago as just a few more Snow White sycophantic traitors, but watching them now is almost chilling. They step over the line with no regard for themselves, nothing but terror on three of their faces, and they don’t hesitate. And all Emma had had to do was ask. 

 

It’s a terrifying power, that degree of love for a ruler, and she had shamelessly longed for it for so long that she’d hated Snow for having it. She thinks she could have hated Emma for being born into it as well if she wasn’t so busy watching Emma with alarm. Emma looks fierce and driven, the wind from the monkeys’ wings surging against her as she stands back and lets the dwarves risk themselves for her, and there’s not a shred of concern on her face.

 

“What are you doing?” Regina asks finally.

 

“Bringing the fight to Zelena.” Emma’s teeth are gritted together against the wind. “Whatever it takes, right? We make the town safe again. And Leroy volunteered himself and his brothers. Can you get the monkeys into the station cells?” 

 

“Don’t you think–“

 

“I think I should do what works best. This whole town is counting on us.” Emma refuses to look at her and Regina focuses, thinks of the cells beside each other that David must be watching- does David know about this?- and concentrates until the monkeys _pop_ out of existence above the dwarves. 

 

“We did it!” Leroy shouts, clapping one of the dwarves on the back. _Doc_ , Regina thinks, as he stumbles backwards, crossing the town line again.

 

The monkey appears from nowhere, shooting so quickly over their heads that Regina can’t even throw up a shield before it’s grabbing Doc, yanking him up through the trees. “No!” Leroy shouts, and Emma’s eyes go wide, the focus in them gone and replaced with panic. She fumbles for her gun and Leroy shouts again. “Don’t! That could be my brother too!”

 

“What am I supposed to do then?” And Emma’s eyes are suddenly on Regina, pleading and panicked. 

 

Regina holds up a hand. “Don’t look at me. I’m not playing ‘Pick the Prettiest Dwarf’ and saving one over the other. You got yourself into this mess, you get out of it.” And maybe she’s a little crankier than she’d thought from the incident earlier. She winces internally at how Emma’s face falls and Emma turns on her heel, running after the flying monkey.

 

Sneezy looks furious. “She can’t just…leave one of us to be turned into another of Zelena’s prisoners!” Regina turns to affix him with an Evil Queen glare, and his voice rises and squeaks midway through the sentence. He buries his nose in his handkerchief again.

 

“You were willing to die for her up until now. What, no follow-through?” She sneers with disdain and sighs, Emma’s panic still burning uncomfortable holes in her chest. Emma hadn’t been prepared for this, no matter how extreme her plan had been, and she…doesn’t want Emma to suffer through the aftermath of it. 

 

_Ugh_. She tracks the monkey, flapping over the tops of the trees while Doc waves wildly for help and Emma runs somewhere below them, and stretches out her hands, sending the least murderous electricity at it that she can manage. It squawks and jerks but keeps flying, and Regina pops away from the town line and to where Doc is being dragged through the woods.

 

“Regina!” Emma calls her name, panting as she catches up, and Regina focuses again when the monkey swoops down, letting a new flash of energy crash into the spot where Doc is being held by monkey feet. The creature drops Doc and Regina twists to watch it but there are suddenly flapping feathers in her face and then a jerk on her shoulders and _dammit_ , the monkey has her.

 

“Regina!” Emma is shouting now, face taut as she struggles with her gun, and she looks terrified suddenly, more than she’d been when it had been Doc. “Regina, they _bite_!” 

 

Right. Thats the speculation on why Little John had been turned into one. But the monkey isn’t biting her, just scraping its clawed feet along her skin to hang onto her, and she growls at the indignity of this whole situation and twists as much as she can in the air, reaching behind her to grab the monkey’s leg where it holds her and summoning flames to her palm. _Scree-eee-eech!_ and she’s dropped from his feet, magically slowing her fall just in time before she lands on the ground.

 

“Hiya, Sis.” She isn’t surprised to see Zelena there, leaning back against a post as she regards Regina. They’re down by the docks, looking out over the water. The monkey lands on the bars of the rail with two front legs and only one of its back ones, baring its teeth at her. 

 

Regina glances around. For all the monkeys they’d captured, there are still half a dozen arrayed around the dock. Rumple is nowhere to be found at least. “A couple of apes and my sister. How could I miss a family reunion with my mother’s family?” She smiles, tight and dangerous. “Though I suppose you never knew them. Lovely folk. Mother despised them.” 

 

There’s a glint of curiosity in Zelena’s eyes, bright and impossible for her to hide, and Regina wonders for a moment what they could have been if Mother had kept her, had let them be sisters scampering around and whispering secrets about the world to each other instead of bearing them in silence. 

 

But then Zelena says, “I thought it’d be your pet my monkey brought back to me,” and the curiosity is replaced by cold amusement. “My pets playing with your pet. They can be gentle…if I let.” She bites out the _let_ like it’s an indication in itself, and Regina’s eyes narrow.

 

“Emma isn’t a _pet_ ,” she snarls out, protective as Zelena’s tongue curls in front of her teeth lasciviously. The fireball is as automatic as its ever been and Zelena waves it away with ease.

 

“You’re more interesting here.” Her lips press together into a lazy smile. “Little town. Little boys and little girls.” She opens her hands and green energy slams into Regina, throwing her back against the outer wall of the cannery. She steadies herself, head still throbbing from the blow. “More to lose. And you _will_ lose it all.” 

 

Regina blinks back stars at the edges of her vision and stalks back forward, unleashing purple lightning of her own. _Henry. Emma,_ she reminds herself. They’re the ones Zelena would threaten, and she’ll kill her before she touches them. Electricity surges purple-white and Zelena reels for a moment before she vanishes and reappears a few feet over, still smiling, and Regina straightens, her confidence returning. “Somehow I doubt it,” she says, calm again. Her brow knits together. “Is that what recasting the curse was about? Taking my place here?” 

 

Zelena’s eyebrow quirks but she says nothing in response, crosses her arms and stands tall like…like a stubborn big sister. And Regina longs for it to be true with such fierce desire that she takes a step back, suddenly uncertain. “You don’t…you don’t know much about Mother, do you?” she says. “That you would want to live my life.” 

 

“I know you were spoiled enough not to appreciate what you’d gotten. Married to a king! The apple of Mother’s eye.” Zelena sneers at her, stalking closer. “You had everything, and I lived as a peasant with parents who never told me the truth about who I truly was.”

 

Her mouth is open to explain just what kind of _sacrifices_ she’d made to be queen, to be Mother’s prized possession, but she’s distracted an instant later. “You had a mother,” she says slowly. “You had a mother and you wanted _Cora_?” 

 

Zelena’s lip curls. “She wasn’t my _real_ mother,” she says, and Regina slaps her hard, enough that Zelena jerks back and there’s blood on her mouth and Regina stares at it, feeling dazed and disconnected at the fury that had awakened and died with that assertion.

 

Zelena puts a hand to her lip, an unpleasant smile on her face, and her pendant glows bright green as she waves a lazy hand at Regina. Regina's flung backward and unleashes a burst of power in return, but it’s swallowed by howling winds of green magic and she’s helpless to do anything but protect herself as she falls toward the water.

 

She navigates the wind, twisting just enough to the side that she lands on the deck of a small motorboat, and she stands on it as the green energy dies down and she spots, in the distance, a small blonde figure racing toward the docks. And then closer, a redhead who glares at her still. “You’re a fool,” Zelena hisses. “I thought that I would manipulate the past to live your life, but you would never be there to appreciate it. Instead I’ll take them all from you so you can _see_ what you have and never touch it again.” 

 

Her voice is smooth again, composed and regal, and she can see Zelena hate her for it. “And how will you do that?” she asks silkily. “Threaten my son again?” 

 

“Oh, I don’t need to threaten anyone.” Zelena licks her lips. “All I have to do is wait.” 

 

Emma is nearly at the docks by now, wild-eyed and terrified until she catches sight of Regina, and Regina can see palpable calm as she registers her. Zelena cocks her head. “Emma Swan, I see you never did deliver my message to my sister. Bad girl.” She says it loudly enough that Regina can hear and Regina knows that that’s intentional, and she can see on Emma’s face that there’s something Emma has been keeping from her. 

 

Emma’s magic glows around her like she’s aflame and Regina suddenly understands what had gotten her angry enough to be risking dwarf lives to inconvenience Zelena. “I’ll–“ she starts, and Zelena puffs out of existence.

 

Emma lets out a frustrated shout and punches the rail with a magically charged fist, sending a large chunk of it into the ocean. “Fuck this.” She kicks a bench and it detaches and flips over and she doesn’t seem to notice. “Fuck _Zelena_.” 

 

“Please don’t,” Regina says, appearing behind Emma to clasp a warning hand on her wrist before she can set the whole dock on fire. Emma’s magic skips into her as though it had been summoned, curling into her stomach with a warmth that feels almost nurturing.

 

Emma shudders. “Regina.” There’s still guilt in her eyes for whatever had gone on between her and Zelena, not unlike how she’d looked that day when they’d found her and known that Walsh had been there. Shattered like long fault lines through her body, still whole but with the scars that could break her apart if she moves the wrong way. Zelena had found vulnerability and Emma _thrums_ with it now, is hostile and fragile and powered by it, and she says, “They’re all monkeys.” 

 

“What?”

 

“The dwarves. They all…stepping over the line may not make you lose your memories anymore, but that’s what makes you one of Zelena’s…” Regina moves around her so she can stare at her and Emma offers her a wan smile. “At least I’m not dating another flying monkey.”

 

She’s taken aback by the deadness in Emma’s eyes. “Emma…” 

 

The glass splinters just a bit more deeply, and Emma’s head falls forward as though it’s too heavy to keep up anymore. “I fucked up, Regina. Zelena fucked me up. I wanted to…I wanted to fight back and now Leroy and the– oh god, my parents are going to find out. And I failed again.” 

 

As though summoned, there’s a sudden black smoke in the distance and the sound of gunshots. No. Not black smoke. Monkeys flapping their way up from the station while someone fires impotently at them. “ _No_ ,” Emma hisses, eyes a darker green than Regina thinks she’s ever seen them before. “No, no, no. It worked!” She turns to Regina in sudden desperation. “Didn’t you put them into the cells? I–“

 

The last monkey flies away in the direction of the town line and Emma’s phone rings a moment later. “David,” she says, staring down at the screen, and sags. “Hi.”

 

She speaks on the phone and Regina considers teleporting back to Zelena’s house to take them on again, but she’s just as swiftly seized by trepidation at the thought of challenging Zelena again, drained of power and so much weaker than the witch. She can barely hold her own for just minutes against her, and now…now isn’t a good time to die.

 

So she waits until Emma hangs up her phone, looking stricken. “I lost them all. They pushed the bars apart and made a break for it. Everything we did today was a waste.”

 

“What do you want to do now?” Regina asks, and she expects Emma to say, _Take on Zelena_. Or to head to the station. An angry Emma is an indefatigable one, driven by righteous fury and hatred and unstoppable.

 

Except Emma isn’t angry today, she’s weary and defeated, and that’s the Emma who runs away instead of standing her ground and fighting back. Regina tenses, annoyed before it even begins, but Emma raises her eyes to stare at her…jaw. And a tentative finger traces a line from it to her ear that stings.

 

She touches the spot and her hand comes back bloody. She hadn’t even noticed that she’d been nicked by the flying monkey until she thinks about when the stinging sensation had begun. “It doesn’t hurt?” Emma says, reading her face as easily as Regina reads hers.

 

Regina shrugs uncomfortably. “I don’t feel pain as strongly as I did before Owen– before Greg and Tamara tried to electrocute my brain to oblivion. Nerve damage, maybe.” She doesn’t think about it very often, considers it a gift rather than a weakness, but Emma’s eyes are soft and worried like they hadn’t been about the dwarves as she strokes the skin along the cut. “What do you want to do now?” Regina says again.

 

“I want to make sure you’re okay.” Emma swallows. “Okay?” 

 

She’s averting her eyes like she’s embarrassed to want it, to try to take care of someone else for a moment, and Regina whispers, “Okay.” 

 

They don’t stop at the station or anywhere but the town line to get the car, and Emma makes no mention of the dwarves again. Regina’s eyes darken at the memory of them, charging forward again and again as Emma keeps a safe distance. Emma had never reminded her of Snow until that moment, a kingdom ready to die for her.

 

She sweeps away her automatic dislike of it by the time they’re back home and she’s found a first-aid kit in a kitchen cabinet. Emma presses a wet cloth to her neck, cleaning it with gentle strokes and keeping her eyes fixed on it, and she’s finally beginning to look content.

 

Regina’s done this a hundred times over the years before she’d gotten her magic back. Little strokes against little Henry’s skin, murmured songs in her father’s native tongue that her Henry would echo with her in his tiny voice when the tears had stopped. Butterfly kisses and something Henry had called a dragon kiss that had just been him licking the side of her face and looking pleased with himself when she’d made faces about it.

 

She’s never been on the receiving end of this kind of care. Mother had never left marks and the king’s servants had been rough and careless with her, and she’d learned quickly that she would only receive tenderness from her own hands (or Snow’s, but she’d done her best not to think of _that_ ). She’d never thought of herself as the one to be cared for until now.

 

But Emma is delicate and careful as though she’s doing this for a child and Regina remembers that Emma also knows dragon kisses and Henry shivering beneath her and songs she’s never learned emerging from her lips. Emma knows everything now, the quiet and the joyful and their little boy in her arms, except she also knows that it’s a lie. It had never been real for her.

 

And maybe Emma needs this and Regina needs this, to try something new and trade places for a moment. Emma needs to _give_ and Regina needs to _accept_ and for a moment, Regina can forget Emma with fires blazing around her and this Emma who would sacrifice others for her fury and Emma who isn’t quite the Emma she’d come to trust to be _better_. This is still the Emma she knows, giving of herself even when she’s struggling with her own insecurities, always trying to help even when she isn’t needed. No matter what she’s fighting with now, this is still Emma.

 

Emma removes the cloth and replaces it with her fingers. There’s a warmth on her neck like a sunbeam and Emma smiles as Regina touches her jaw and feels only smooth skin.


	9. Chapter 9

**xvii. centralization**

 

“A curfew?” Granny repeats from the audience. “In Storybrooke?” There’s a murmur of bewildered assent from the crowd, and Emma clears her throat to clarify again. 

 

“Zelena’s flying monkeys are out of control. They’ve been snatching people away- usually at night- and dragging them to the town line, and it’s safer for everyone if we have an enforced curfew after sunset.” It’s been almost a week since her failed attempt to imprison them and they’ve gotten nastier since, grabbing victims in front of her and baring their teeth as though sending a message from their master. 

 

She grits her teeth, hating Zelena just a little more for it. “I am trying to keep you all safe, but you need to trust me for that.” Beside her, David is a comforting presence, looming over the crowd with the straight-backed confidence of an actual leader. Far in the back of the room, Regina and Henry are sitting together, as unobtrusively as they can be being Evil Queen and Son. Henry is whispering to a boy beside him- one Emma thinks she remembers from Neverland- but Regina stares straight ahead, capturing her gaze and offering her a barely perceptible smile.

 

She breathes. And flushes a tiny bit. And breathes again, catching the smile and keeping it somewhere warm and safe in her heart until the pounding within her slows to a soft beat and she can return to her audience with renewed certainty. Regina’s smile widens and Emma has to bite her lip to keep a responding smile tamped down.

 

David is speaking now, urging the crowd on and referring to her as the Savior, and there’s a new wave of acceptance from them. “I’m still bringing my crossbow out to the diner,” Granny grumbles, but she’s the last voice of argument in the room and people begin filtering out of the room, wandering toward the exits and the coffee table as others surge forward to ask more questions.

 

It’s exhausting and she’s not good at this- at calming people down and telling them what to do- except maybe she is because the majority of them seem to leave happy and David is patting her back when he heads out behind them. She doesn’t even know what she’s responded to them. It’s been four days since she’s slept more than a few hours in the morning after an all-night patrol, searching for Zelena and fighting flying monkeys and practicing magic with Regina until they’re both collapsing together, losing themselves on the couch for more important activities. 

 

Well. Nothing is more important than catching Zelena, but too much time with Regina has a way of making her forget that. Regina in a relationship reveals a whole fascinating new side to the other woman that she’d never dreamed existed, all dancing eyes and playful touches and she _glows_ like there’s new joy she’s containing even when she’s happy, smiles behind smiles behind smiles and Emma’s an idiot helpless and fixated on how she can see them all at once. Regina in a relationship is prone to the same old insults but they’re even more transparent now than they’ve ever been, affection hiding beneath sharp words. Regina in a relationship can have them both naked in an instant and is always in control, even when Emma has her pinned down and is grinding against her in that way that makes her eyes dilate for an instant before they slide shut and her nails clamp into Emma’s sides.

 

“Emma.” Regina is in front of her, a dangerous look on her face like maybe she knows exactly what Emma’s thinking about. “Congratulations on a successful town meeting. I didn’t know you were capable,” she adds, because Regina still doesn’t know how to do compliments without trying to offend her. It’s as reassuring as her smile, somehow. 

 

“You made a scene during my last one! And it was all a con!” she feels obligated to protest.

 

An eyebrow is raised in challenge. “Was the one where you got up and accused me of being a thief and a bully a con, too?”

 

“Yes! It absolutely was!”

 

“Only partially,” Regina says haughtily. “And my con, not yours. You had no excuse. Other than being so easily manipulated,” she adds, eyes glittering with amusement. Emma narrows her eyes mock-threateningly.

 

David steps in, mistaking the banter for something more hostile. “Emma is just trying to protect the town. I thought you were with us on this, Regina.” 

 

Regina’s smile turns frosty. “Yes, a curfew sounds like something I’d have enforced when this town still obeyed me as well.” Which might be a dig at Emma, but Emma ignores it. Regina hasn’t been opposed to this curfew but she hasn’t been encouraging her plans of it, either, which means she’s probably not its biggest fan. 

 

She can’t let herself operate only on other people’s plans, not when Zelena is out there taunting her with the capture of more and more of her town each day. It’s like a series of personal messages, each more mocking than the next, and Emma is like a woman possessed out to send her own message right back to Zelena. So yeah, curfew. Enforced. If Zelena is attacking anyone, it’s going to be her. No more casualties.

 

She patrols for the rest of the day, stalking Zelena’s house alone and wandering through the woods with David, and the roads clear slowly at sunset as she urges people on to their houses. She pauses only a moment when she catches sight of movement in the woods. _Robin Hood_. The Merry Men’s camp is right here, and they only have a few small cabins between them, but they walk freely between them as though she hadn’t seen Friar Tuck listening attentively at the meeting earlier that day. 

 

As though they aren’t afraid of Zelena’s monkeys, or are braving them for silly, reckless reasons. Or maybe Robin Hood does have reason to be unafraid.

 

 _To hell with them._ She scowls deeply and walks on, heading home to eat a quick bite of dinner and cajole Regina into joining her when she heads back out.

 

Henry is already asleep when Emma comes inside, Regina in her study reading through paperwork. “Hey.”

 

“Hey,” Regina echoes, and Emma slides down, legs against Regina's thighs on the love seat, to lower herself to Regina’s level and press a kiss to her lips. “It’s only ten o’clock. Are you in for the night?” Emma hears the twinge of hope under the casual question, the suggestion of _magic lessons_ that makes her all gooey inside.

 

“Nah, I thought we’d leave Henry here with some good wards and go out patrolling together. Enforcing the curfew and killing flying monkeys, right?” There’s suggestion in her voice, too, and she lifts her neck as Regina’s lips press against the sensitive skin there, pull, and let it go.

 

Regina pulls away, frowning up at her. “You don’t need to do that. David offered to take nights in his truck. And we still have all that defensive magic for you to work on.”

 

“Regina. I can’t stop now. Zelena is…” 

 

“Zelena is keeping you busy to keep me irritated and on edge,” Regina interjects swiftly, and then purses her lips like she’s regretting it already. But she stands by it anyway, watching Emma’s face darken with no additional sign of hesitation. “That’s what she’s doing now. Using you as a message.” 

 

Emma’s eyes narrow. “This isn’t about you. Not _everything_ is about you.” Except Zelena calls Emma a toy and pet, no one worth fighting when her sister is here, and Emma is only…

 

 _No_. She’s going to _make_ Zelena regret overlooking her. This isn’t some fucking pissing match between sisters that she’s trapped in the middle of, and she won’t be manipulated and tossed aside as just another pawn.

 

“Not everything,” Regina agrees, shifting back, and Emma climbs off of her and stands, feeling suddenly helpless in front of the other woman’s ease. “But this? Yes. You’re playing directly into her hands every time you overreact and run into battle with her.” Her arms are laid out across the back of the sofa, open and inviting in a way that fools no one in the room. Regina spread out like this is Regina on the defensive, uncertain and guarded through her openness, and Emma folds her arms in response. 

 

“So…what? I’m just supposed to roll over and let Zelena walk all over me? This town should be wiped out because maybe your sister is just sending you little greeting cards in the form of _imprisoned flying monkeys_?” Her voice is rising and she has to make a conscious effort to lower it when Regina flinches back, just a tiny bit. 

 

And then straightens, hands curling against the edges of the love seat as her head rolls along her shoulders for a moment. “Emma,” she says, and it’s always a tiny bit too comforting when Regina says her name. It’s an effort to keep her hackles raised until she thinks about Zelena’s lips brushing against hers and mocking laughter. “I just think you need some space to breathe. You haven’t slept properly in a week. Zelena running you down won’t do any of us any favors.” 

 

“I’m _fine_.” She naps on breaks and she’s running on adrenaline and anger and that smile Regina gets when her tongue is sticking out just against her bottom lip in promise. “You don’t think I can take her? Did you _see_ me that night when I fought Walsh?” 

 

“I think you’re perfectly capable,” Regina says blandly. From her mouth it doesn’t sound like false flattery or appeasement, not a weapon or a gift but honest facts. “You have more potential than anyone I’ve ever seen. But you’re not infallible, and you need to stop pushing yourself to your limits.” 

 

She’s being careful not to get too angry, Emma sees, and that makes Emma even angrier. Regina doesn’t get to be the _controlled_ one here, the one who isn’t sinking to Zelena’s level or whatever the hell she thinks is going on. Regina doesn’t get to sit back in her house and talk about Emma like she’s some kind of distraction. 

 

Somehow this all went wrong because all she'd wanted was to sneak kisses in the woods with Regina and make another garden of their own and instead she’s on her heels, angry and defensive, and Regina’s fingers are tightening against the edge of her seat again. “I’m trying to save everyone, okay? I’m trying to see the big picture here.” 

 

“You never used to see the big picture,” Regina says softly, and a darkness passes over her face like it does sometimes when she thinks Emma is going too far. Like she doesn’t know who she’s looking at anymore. “You used to get so caught up in the little people that you’d forget all about it.” 

 

And Emma feels ugly and wrong and ashamed, like she’s disappointed _everyone_ even though her parents are always supportive and the whole town has rallied against her plans. But now there’s a house on Mifflin Street where two people watch her with wariness and they destroy her every time they avert their eyes from her. And the tension grows, grows, grows within her until she can’t stop the words that emerge and doesn’t even want to. She wants Regina to flinch and be diminished just as she is now. “Yeah, well, sorry, but I don’t really feel like being schooled by the Evil Queen.” 

 

Regina’s lips part and her knees cross over each other and Emma trembles under the energy that charges the space between them now, like another flame might set this whole thing ablaze. And she wants to curl up beside her and she wants to forget monkeys and curfews and Zelena laughing in her face and she wants to be angrier and push Regina over the edge, too, so they can be on equal footing again.

 

And instead she pulls out her phone and dials a number and says, “Hey, Hook, want to patrol with me tonight?” and Regina’s face smoothes over into something distant and unreadable.

 

Emma flees the house, shaking and guilty and defiant.

 

Hook finds her when she’s already stalking down the street, sparking white-blue electricity from her fingers at a flying monkey who swoops too close. “Careful there, love. Wouldn’t want you to accidentally kill one of those missing dwarves.” 

 

“Really? Are _you_ my conscience now?” she demands, but she’s careful to aim for the wings instead of the body anyway. The monkey screeches and flaps away before she makes a hit.

 

“Far be it from me to tell the savior what to do.” When she swivels to stare at him, he’s grinning boyishly, bouncing on his heels like he thinks this is some kind of happy romp through Storybrooke. “That’s the queen’s life mission.” 

 

“Shut up.” She kicks a wad of newspaper on the street at him. “Regina doesn’t tell me what to do. She just gets pissy when I don’t listen…when she tells me what to do.” Tonight hadn’t been _orders her around_ as much as _invalidates her vendetta_ but that’s…close enough. She grits her teeth and rounds a corner. 

 

“It’s a pleasure to get some time alone with you without the whole family hanging on, Swan.” He grins with his tongue sliding along the front of his teeth, a perpetual invitation, and she looks away, annoyed and frustrated at her own spur-of-the-moment decision. She hadn’t wanted to do anything other than push back against Regina and instead she’s doing the one thing that Regina had very clearly objected to and tossing Hook a bone with just her presence.

 

And it’s Hook and he understands nuance but filters it in all the wrong ways, sees her dependency on Regina and imagines it’s just an obstacle instead of the entire foreseeable future. If she ever drags her ass back there to apologize, anyway. “The only thing I’m worried about right now is Zelena,” she says forcefully. “I don’t have time to deal with you feeling excluded or whatever because I’ve been working with someone else lately. Are you here to help or are you here to whine?” 

 

Hook raises his hands. “Here to help, of course. Yo\u know how I feel about you.” He shifts from seductive to earnest in an instant, puppy-dog eyes fully activated, and she squirms uncomfortably under them. “We make a good team. Remember the beanstalk?” 

 

She’d chained him up and left him to be freed by a friendly giant, and she remembers him angry and betrayed afterwards, _Dried up, dead, useless. Just like this bean_ , and she’d maybe felt guilty for a moment there before she’d moved on. But now they’re allies and he’s the one who’d brought her home and he says he’s in love with her and things are…different. “Yeah. We were a good team,” she says grudgingly. “Got things done.” 

 

He follows her obediently from there, swaggering in the background as she orders Gepetto inside and warns a few older teens to get back to their houses or she’ll have to arrest them. A monkey screeches overhead and they don’t need any more urging. 

 

They make their way through most of the town, Emma in the lead with her gun drawn and Hook lagging behind her, and they’re almost at the docks when Hook clears his throat. “I hope you don’t expect me to get a room at Granny’s during this curfew,” he says, and there’s something significant in his voice. Like he’s expecting Emma to pick up on a thread he’s dangling.

 

“Nah, you can stay underground on your boat. If they can’t drag David’s pickup truck away, they can’t take the Jolly Roger.” 

 

“Ah. Well…” It’s all very theatrical and Emma is getting annoyed again when Hook says, “You see, I don’t have my ship anymore.” 

 

She blinks. Hook without his ship is…probably important, considering how cranky he’d been about it when they’d crash-landed onto Neverland. There’s the thread he’s pushing out to her. “Where have you been sleeping?” 

 

Hook ignores her question. “I traded it for a magic bean. To come bring you here.”

 

She freezes, deer-in-headlights, as that sinks in. “You traded your ship for me?” She twists to face him. “Wh…why?”

 

He’s looking at her with soulful eyes, that sincere look he gets every time she gives an inch, and for a moment she feels obligated to give him what he wants. To kiss him and accept this relationship because no one should give up _everything_ for her without gaining something out of it, without gaining _her_ out of it. He has no home anymore, a pirate without a ship, and it’s all for her and she should…

 

Should… 

 

She closes her eyes and opens them again, pressing her lips together. “Killian,” she tries. His eyes gleam hopefully and this doesn’t feel quite as bad as walking out on Regina earlier but it’s close. “Thank you. But…you can’t do this. I can’t…I can’t give you what you want.”

 

He leans back against the railing over the water, his smile so smug that she thinks about pushing him over the edge for a moment and feels instantly guilty about it. Because he _gave up his ship for her_. “I can wait.” 

 

“No. No, you can’t.” It’s a day of not being who other people want her to be, but while with Regina she _knows_ she craves being that person again when everything makes sense, with Hook it’s a pipe dream. It’s someone she can’t be and she can’t stand the idea of him standing around, waiting for her to fall in love with him when she never will. “It’s not going to happen. I’m– I’m very flattered that you’re interested, but I’m never going to be interested back. And I don’t want you to sacrifice everything you are for that.”

 

His face takes a mulish tint. “You kissed me. In Neverland. We were–“ 

 

“I had just seen my son and my dad almost died and you _asked_ for it!” She touches her lips, tries to imitate his face that day and it just emerges as a pout. “It was a weird day! And it was clearly a mistake because…god, you gave up your _home_ for me? What am I supposed to do about that, fall into your arms and suddenly develop feelings? That’s not fair to me. It isn’t even fair to you.” His face goes darker and she breathes out shakily. “I’m trying to sort out…I can’t just be your _prize_. I’m sorry. I’m very grateful and I can try to help you get your ship back after Zelena’s gone, but I’m sorry.” 

 

He tilts his head, lips curling into a smile like he thinks she’s kidding, and she watches him stone-faced and uncomfortable until anger and frustration defeat the amusement on his face. “And what am I to do now, Swan? Sashay over the town line and become a woodsman or one of those men who feed birds in your New York? Forget that I’m in love with you and make a new life for myself in an alien world?” 

 

His voice is biting like she’s in a cage again and he’s standing too close with a shriveled up bean in his hands and she clenches her hands into fists and has to control herself not to snap back. “You don’t have to leave, Killian.” This time, his name has the opposite effect and he glowers at her in response, the air between them charged with tension. “I thought…I thought we were friends.”

 

“I’m in love with you,” he sneers, hurt and furious and she just feels guiltier and angrier for being guilty about it. “How the bloody hell am I supposed to be your friend?”

 

Her magic hasn’t emerged often without her consent since the night with Walsh, but she can feel it edging up from her heart to her shoulders to her elbows and wrists and under her fingertips, inviting explosion. She keeps her fists tight and takes a step back. “I’ve already got enough on my plate being something to everyone else, okay, Hook?” She’s savior and sheriff and mom and daughter and she wants to hide sometimes, to find refuge from all of it and learn how to make things easy again. “I can’t also do your tragic unrequited love. I can’t– you can’t shove that onto me too.” 

 

Her eyes are pleading but he’s unmoved. “I can’t just get over it, Swan!” 

 

“Didn’t you fall in love with me in…I don’t know, under a week?” He’d been ready to let her die right before Neverland and then maybe five days later they’d been in the Echo Cave and this burden had settled on her shoulders in his proclamations. “Find some new obsession!”

 

His face is stormy and pained and _no_ , she’s big picture girl now. She isn’t going to let what she’d thought was a friendship change the outcome of this conversation no matter how much it hurts him. “How dare you.”

 

She’s angry and helpless and maybe this is about another fight from earlier, maybe it’s a lot of frustrations that aren’t fair except– “Did you expect that your ship was your _in_ with me?” She hates feeling like she owes him something, hates this _responsibility_ of being someone else’s someone when it’s all she is now. When she’s been so stripped of choice that Hook’s suddenly guilty face is enough to send her over the edge. “That if you did enough for me you’d win me over?”

 

Magic lights up in her hands and she turns and marches down the pier, hands in front of her so Hook can’t see that she’s losing control, and she sinks down onto a bench. “Oh, god. Regina was right. You _are_ my Sidney.” 

 

“Regina. Regina’s the one who’s been poisoning you against me.” Hook is nearing again, following her to the bench so he can grab her by the shoulder. “This is Regina’s doing?” 

 

“Poisoning–? _No_. Regina doesn’t have anything to do with this.” She tugs herself out of his grasp and shoves him back with a little spark of energy. He glances down, betrayed, and she settles back against the bench again. “Not really. Kind of. I’m a little in love with her.” Her magic stops sparking and settles into a steady flow and she stares down at it and tries as hard as she can not to focus on that last admission.

 

It’s not something she’s thinking about. Not now. Not until everything is calm and she can _breathe_ and then maybe consider all the fuzzy feelings and confusion and being in love with Regina is nothing like the last time she’d been in love, not carefree kids who’d pointed their middle fingers at the world and taken what they’d wanted until the lies had caught up with them. Regina is safe and volatile in ways she can navigate and it’s less carefree and simple and more _home_ , stumbling through layers and layers of tightly wrapped emotion like they’re gifts instead of burdens.

 

But she’s no poet, she doesn’t dwell on nuance or what they mean for each other or anything so complex. She just knows that when she’s in Regina’s arms she doesn’t want to leave them and that’s about as philosophical as she gets. “I’m in love with Regina,” she repeats more firmly, and there’s a bitter snicker behind her.

 

She jerks, suddenly remembering Hook behind the bench, and he laughs again, sharp and nasty. “Many a man and woman has believed they were in love with Regina. I hope you gain less pain from it than they did, Emma.” He sidles away toward the edge of the pier where it meets the beach and stalks off into the woods. 

 

She watches him go, exhausted and frustrated and angry again; and then there’s a flash of wings across the sky and she reacts instinctively, throwing a white-hot fireball up into the sky at its body. It’s incinerated in an instant and she gapes, her whole body twitching as she realizes what she’s done. 

 

She doesn’t know who it had been. Maybe some Munchkin or whatever from Oz. Maybe Leroy or one of the missing Lost Boys. She doesn’t even know if it’s really gone. Walsh had vanished in New York in the same way, hadn’t he? 

 

She swallows hard and pushes self-doubt from her mind and wonders if it’s too soon to go back to Regina. It hasn’t even been an hour since she’d left, Hook in tow, and coming back means too many admissions that she isn’t prepared for.

 

She sits on the bench and stares out at the water and waits silently for sleep to take her.

 

It doesn’t, and the silence makes her itchy as phantoms of the past few weeks float out like clouds in the sky. Her mother whirling around above her. Henry avoiding her gaze. Walsh begging for mercy. Hook’s earnest eyes when he’d thought that she’d…that she’d…

 

She blinks and is, very abruptly, seated on Regina’s bed. “Oh,” she whispers, and closes her eyes and curls up and waits.

 

There’s the sound of feet clicking up the stairs and the door creaking open and then silence. And…she’d never thought that disapproving breathing could be possible until tonight. “Hook traded his ship for me,” she says, eyes still shut. Regina doesn’t say anything. “I told him to back off. Permanently. And that…” Her voice trails off, unable to admit what she’d said to Hook aloud again.

 

She lies in cold silence for another moment before there’s a creak on the bed and Regina’s fingers part her hair and pull it back from her face and she gets a gentle, gentle kiss to her forehead. “Go to sleep, Emma,” Regina murmurs. She doesn’t sound angry about earlier, just compassionate, and Emma wishes she’d never left home at all. “You need to sleep.”

 

Maybe it’s a magical kiss- to bring slumber rather than cast it away- because she’s drifting off before she can muster up enough energy to try at a half-assed apology. And Regina is around her, arms tight, and maybe that’s an apology of her own, the two of them dueling in words and comforting with the spaces between them, where inside the silence are words in a language they both understand.

 

* * *

**xviii. propagation**

 

Henry opens the door. “Hi.” He glances up at Snow's beaming face, glances back at Regina with a questioning look. Regina rolls her eyes and he turns back, satisfied and uncertain. “Uh…I have to go.” 

 

He darts past them to where Hansel and Gretel are standing at the edge of the walk with uneasy eyes on her, and she forces what she hopes is a reassuring smile as she opens the door wider. “Henry’s going out with friends today.” They’d argued about it. Well, Emma and Henry had argued about it, Emma adamant that it isn’t safe for him to be out even if Zelena isn’t specifically targeting him and Henry equally adamant that he’s done being chaperoned everywhere. This Henry is already focused on his friends before family, content with only his mothers and more worried about a boring social life than an evil witch. 

 

Sometimes Regina sees him and understands why Emma would have taken him from the truth for the ease of typical adolescence. (And she’s quietly relieved that he doesn’t agree, because she doesn’t know how she’d bear losing them- _him_ \- again.)

 

They’d compromised with a spell like an electric shock in response to human contact, enough to ward off foraying monkeys, and with the added bonus of making sure Henry doesn’t start anything with any of his friends. Her son is much too young to be dating.

 

She scowls to herself and Snow takes it as a greeting. “I wish he’d get to know us again now that he knows who we are,” she sighs, waddling over to the couch and pressing her palms to the sides of her stomach.

 

“He’s a teenage boy adjusting to the fact that he has an entire family he’s never known.” Emma’s voice is strained. “Trust me. It takes time.” 

 

Regina watches her for a moment. She’s been walking around with dark circles under her eyes, her magic even more volatile than usual now that she’s barely taking care of herself, and she’s been snappish and moody and consumed by Zelena. _All I have to do is wait_ , Zelena had said, and she’d pulled enough loose threads to have Emma on a crusade.

 

Last night she’d slept, tossing and turning against Regina’s side and mumbling names and directions with every twist into their blankets. Today she’s awake enough to keep a hand hovering over Regina’s back and exhausted enough not to remember that she shouldn’t be doing it in front of her mother, and Regina delicately moves away to sit opposite Snow. “Right now, I think he’s focused on finding friends. He isn’t going anywhere.” 

 

“Yeah. We’re not…we’re not going anywhere.” Emma takes the hint and sits a careful distance away from her on the couch, drawing a knee up to wrap her arms around and lean into it. 

 

“I’m glad to hear that.” Regina doesn’t think Emma notices how Snow glows when she speaks to Emma, how her whole face lights up and she angles forward even when it makes her wince and tighten her grip on her sides. Snow- for all her actions to the contrary- really does love Emma as intensely as she’s capable, but in return, Emma has a lifetime of disbelief in love behind her. “You should come back home now that Henry knows. Your room is just how you left it and David set up the trundle bed for Henry…” 

 

“Oh. Uh…” Regina recognizes this uncomfortable look from a conversation they’d once had outside Granny’s, Emma in control of her time with Henry and about to reject her. Emma’s smiling but her eyes look trapped and pained and she’s swaying tighter against her knee.

 

She steps in hastily before Snow loses that glow and Emma’s face falls any more. “Has your pregnancy brain stripped away all your common sense or did you lack that to begin with? You’re having a baby, Snow. Do you know how much space a baby takes up?”

 

“A…crib?” Snow rubs her stomach again. “We had a nursery back at home for Emma, but we also had a castle. I think we can make do in the loft.” There’s a faraway look on her face suddenly, her even-more-addled-mind-than-usual making new connections there. “At least for now. David told me that Hook left town?”

 

Emma stiffens and Regina remembers a nighttime confession that Emma hasn’t brought up since morning had arrived. _I told him to back off. Permanently. And that…_ Regina shakes her head. “What a shame. I’m sure his departure will be a devastating blow to absolutely no one. Why? Were you planning on asking him to move in too? Aren’t pregnant women supposed to have _heightened_ senses of smell?” Emma snorts and meets Regina’s eyes, gratitude shining past the amusement, and Regina hazards a hand between them, her fingers brushing against Emma’s side. 

 

Snow rolls her eyes and misses Regina’s hand entirely. “Yeah, maybe not with Hook, I guess. He _was_ a pirate. But Emma, don’t you think about having another?” 

 

“Pirate?” 

 

“Emma.” Snow sighs affectionately. “I think about us raising our babies together, you know? Making a new family out of the one we’ve lost.” She looks hopeful and misses the dark shadow across Emma’s face yet again. “Don’t you?” 

 

“Not really.” Emma’s smile is forced and Snow’s brow furrows. Regina leans back. This is the kind of chaos she might’ve enjoyed even a year ago in Neverland, mother and daughter with comically different visions of their relationship. But now it feels sour and she cares too much to enjoy it, both of them ripped to shreds by their own expectations of the other. “My baby is twelve and I didn’t raise him.” 

 

“But you have the memories of it. Because of Regina.” She gets a warm, guileless beam from Snow for that. “It’s the same, isn’t it? And if you wanted to–“ She pauses midway through more breakdown-inducing good intentions, wincing. “Sorry. Sudden pain. If you wanted to try it for real. It could be our new family.” She beams at both of them, hopeful and invulnerable to the doubt and timidity that a less confident woman might offer now. Regina stares. Emma squirms.

 

A long silence.

 

“I think I’m going to stay here for now,” Emma announces. “If that’s okay with you, Regina.” She peers at Regina almost timidly. “It’s Henry’s…” Snow lets out another prolonged groan and Emma frowns. “Mary Margaret? Are you…” Her voice rises. Are you in labor?”

 

Snow’s eyes widen with the realization and she presses her lips together, nodding vigorously until another scream tears from her lips. 

 

“Why are they so close together?” Emma jumps up, her voice unnaturally high-pitched. “Did you just notice them now?” 

 

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Call David. Where’s my phone? Did I leave my phone in the car?” Regina’s already halfway across the room, making a beeline for the phone in the kitchen. Because of course _Snow White_ would go into labor in _her_ living room. She reaches the doorway and–

 

She’s thrown backward by a block of magic so strong that her skin is sizzling as she hurtles backward. 

 

Emma manages to catch her, arms tight around her twitching body. She feels on fire in a familiar sensation, sparking with energy she knows, and it takes a long moment of Emma hanging onto her before she can be lowered to the ground. “The fuck?” 

 

“Zelena.” Snow is curled into a ball on the couch now, eyes fearful. “Oh, god, Zelena did something. My baby. She’s going to take my baby.” She moans, staggering out a pained sob as another contraction hits. “Regina, please.” 

 

“It’s impossible. The wards on my house are…” She hesitates, rising again to walk to the doorway. This time she senses the magic before she touches it, and it’s familiar again in ways that have her swallowing back dread. 

 

“I can’t deliver a baby!” Emma says desperately as Regina presses a hand to the barrier. The magic is static against her palm, roiling and uncontrolled and very nearly deadly for the wrong person. “We need to get you to the hospital!” She’s closing her eyes and clenching her fists like she’s trying to teleport and nothing is coming, nothing breaking through the barrier that cages them.

 

Snow leans her head back against the arm of the couch, eyes gleaming with tears and terror. “Regina, don’t you dare let me lose another baby,” she groans like she’s heartsick already, and Emma shifts frantically beside her. 

 

“You’re not losing this baby,” Regina says forcefully, detaching from the barrier. Has it been three decades since the last time they’d been here, Snow prostrate beneath her and she towering above, vicious and smug and not an idea of how important that little lost baby and this whole damned family would become to her? Sometimes when she gets to thinking about destiny (the less, the better. There are no missed chances or regrets anymore) she can’t quite believe that this is her ending. That it’s Snow White and her daughter and the son Emma had given her who define her now.

 

Snow’s eyes are glassy and a shudder of pain tremors her body. “Okay. Okay.” And naturally, right then, her water breaks all over Regina’s several-thousand-dollar couch. 

 

Emma slides a hand up to anxiously pull her hair away from her face. “Oh, shit. It’s fine! it’s fine, Mary Margaret. We’re going to break through this, right?” She winds up her hand like she’s going to pitch a softball and unleashes a wave of magic before Regina can stop her. Regina ducks instinctively, throwing herself in front of Snow just in time. Around them, the magic barrier surges to visible levels of white-blue, electricity sparking through the air, and Regina holds Snow against her, shielding her from the energy that suffuses the room around them as Emma stands in the center of it, face naked to the barrier but still untouched by magic as she stares, stunned.

 

Snow is silent and Regina lowers her back down to the couch, noting with some concern and relief that she’s unconscious. She can see the clenching that rolls down Snow’s stomach and the muffled moan that emerges with it, and she tears herself away, returning to where Emma’s energy is still spilling from her into the barrier.

 

“It’s not Zelena,” she announces unnecessarily as Emma gapes at the barrier she’d unconsciously put up.

 

Emma swallows, and Regina takes her hands before any more electricity can emerge from them. “I thought I had it under control,” she whispers. “I didn’t even know–“ 

 

“You’re not in control around Snow.” Regina wants to be gentle and encouraging and all the soft things that will be as useless as shaking Emma and shouting at her. “And you need to be right now or you’re going to hurt her.” She keeps her voice steady, feels the surge of magic from Emma to her, and squeezes her hands. “If you’re afraid, get over it.”

 

Emma shakes her head, little quick movements that are jerky and unsure. “I’m not afraid?” It emerges as a question instead of an assertion.

 

Regina purses her lips together. “Of course you’re afraid. Your mother is about to have a baby after twenty-eight years of you growing up without her.” Emma reels and Regina presses on, desperation making her words sharp and merciless. “And she has no idea how it’s affecting you but I do. Because I did this to both of you and there is no way in hell that I’m going to let it happen to you again.”

 

The frantic energy in Emma’s eyes hardens into something more still. More receptive, too. “What am I supposed to do?” 

 

Sometimes she can’t believe that she’d ever been that person before she’d had Henry, dark and cold and vengeful. Sometimes she doesn’t know if she’s ever been anyone else and if she’s been lying to herself all along about changing.

 

Today she only cares about Emma and Snow being able to survive this new crisis, her past and future be damned. “Go to her.” Another contraction shudders through Snow’s body and she groans again. “Calm her down. Then we’ll either get out of here, or…” 

 

“Or?” 

 

“Figure out how to deliver a baby,” she says helplessly, and Emma stumbles backward and hurries to Snow.

 

Snow is waking up again, slipping in and out of consciousness as whatever had shorted her out in Emma’s magic takes hold, and Emma sits down next to her, taking her hand. “Hey. You’re going to be fine.” Her voice barely quavers and there’s nothing but reassurance on her face and Snow blinks up at her trustingly.

 

And that’s Emma’s gift, shutting down her emotions so they never escape and reveal themselves to the world. Regina can’t do it, can’t pretend without it coming out slick and false, and she’s always revealed to the people around her, but Emma can have a barrier glowing with a thousand turmoiled thoughts and she’s still offering her mother a comforting smile as Snow stares weakly up at her. “We’re going to break through that barrier, okay? You just…focus on the giving birth part. Zelena isn’t getting the kid.” 

 

“Last time…” Snow is pale and she clings to Emma’s hand as another contraction seizes up her body. Emma looks down, tense again, and Snow tugs at her hand. “No, listen. You were so tiny and I knew the curse was coming and you were so tiny and I wanted to keep you. And I kept thinking about how you couldn’t even roll over or crawl and I was going to send you into nothingness for your best chance.” She’s crying now, hand tight in Emma’s, and Emma’s eyes are wet and dark-rimmed and she keeps smiling as the magic beside Regina roils faster and faster still. “And I couldn’t. I never had you. I just wanted to…”

 

The barrier shatters outward in a serious of purple bursts of light and Snow blinks out at them as Emma wrenches her hand from hers and hurtles toward the foyer table where she’d left her cell phone. “Ambulance!” she’s barking out, running back to Snow’s side. “I need an ambulance!”  

 

Snow cries out another ragged scream and Regina tears herself away from the doorway, helping Emma hoist Snow up so they’re standing on either side of her, supporting her to the doorway as the sirens screech a few blocks away. 

 

David tears around the corner a moment before the ambulance does. “Snow!” He’s taking her from their arms and into his own and steering Snow toward the ambulance and they’re left in the doorway together, arms empty and breathing hard. 

 

And Emma’s still wet-eyed with vulnerability like no one but her mother can tug out from her and Regina doesn’t even notice that she’d been crying too until she says, “Are you all right?” and her voice is scratchy and raw.

 

Emma says, “You took down that barrier, didn’t you?” 

 

She sounds uncertain about it and there might even be resentment there if Regina cares to look for it (she doesn’t) and Regina doesn’t want to think about Snow White with a tiny baby who doesn’t even move yet. She doesn’t want to think about Henry in her arms and the fear, the constant _What if I trip and he falls, what if he slips from my arms_ , a dozen double-checks of carseat straps and sneaking into his room at night to touch his little belly and feel it rise and fall in response. 

 

And Snow’s daughter had been put in a wardrobe and it’s easy to blame that on Snow’s own idiocy until she thinks about _I was going to send you out there for your best chance_ and she’s the one who’d taken away all their best chances. And now she has Henry and Emma and Emma has deep-rooted bitterness and it’s all so very wrong. Wrong enough for her thoughts to go dark enough that she could break a barrier with only her opposing energy feeding into Emma’s. Emma’s resentment. Her regrets.

 

“Regina.” She turns and Emma is close enough to kiss. “Regina, stop whatever you’re thinking.” And there’s fear in Emma’s voice and it freezes her. Emma looks at her pleadingly. “You can’t get caught up in the past. It doesn’t change anything. We have Henry, right? That’s what you said in Neverland.” She kisses Regina’s unresponsive lips, pressing hers to them in rapid flutters as Regina stares at her. “Regina, please. I…” Emma takes a step back and magic surges between them where they part. “I need you.” Her voice is small but determined, forcefully reassuring as it had been with Snow, and she holds Regina’s gaze for a moment before her cheeks darken and she looks down.

 

Emma needs her like Henry had needed her in Neverland- not burdened by regret, drifting in a sea of her own misdeeds and useless and wallowing. There’s no good to be found in brooding over the past- not unless the remorse is enough to crash down a barrier and save Snow from a disastrous birthing scenario. 

 

Regina closes the front door and pushes intrusive thoughts of _baby Henry, baby Emma, and one more_ from her mind and looks instead at the woman in front of her, waiting for her response. She crosses the distance between them and kisses Emma until their magic combined sends shivers down her spine and Emma is clinging to her tighter and tighter still and she thinks that if she’s still alive for any purpose, it’s to take care of the ones who need her. To be able to give again like she hasn’t been able to give since Daniel had died. And all her heart has ever wanted is that, and she’d been cheated of it by a forced husband and a vapid child and a kingdom and a town that would only ever despise her. Emma gives it to her with only the simple admission of _I need you_ and her world comes to life again.

 

But Emma holds on just as Henry had once held onto her, sweet Emma with the darkness behind her eyes who needs her to be hers and doesn’t seem to know much else about what she needs. “We need to go to the hospital,” Regina murmurs, laying her head against Emma’s shoulder. She’s supposed to be holding Emma up but instead Emma is stroking her hair, arms wound around her still and eyes soft and solicitous.

 

“Yeah.” She gets a kiss pressed to her neck for it and her hand slides down, unconscious, to splay against Emma’s lower abdomen. The tips of her fingers dip into Emma’s jeans before she remembers that Snow is having a baby right now and they’re still not positive that Zelena isn’t after it anymore.

 

She pulls away, her thumb still hooked into Emma’s jeans, and they disappear and reappear in the hospital just outside Labor and Delivery. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned, this chapter contains sex and violence. Not at the same time. :)
> 
> I was going to hold onto this for a little longer, but it seemed apt to post it tonight. Just one ficlet, but a super long one, and the next chapter will be one ficlet as well.

**xix. devastation**

 

The baby is a boy.

 

She breathes, relief washing over her when she first sees him. It’s stupid and childish and she’s trying to think of anything else but her suddenly unstable magic again, but everything gets a little quieter when it’s a blue blanket wrapped around the child in her mother’s arms.

 

Regina stands further back, shoulders rigid and face bent into the kind of smile that she used to get when Henry would move from her back to Emma. Happy and afraid and uncomfortable all at once, but she keeps her eyes on Emma and Mary Margaret and remains silent just beyond the doorway. Henry is between them, hovering behind Emma but too uncertain to approach any closer. 

 

And, of course, the sense of suffocation returns moments later when David takes the baby and Mary Margaret watches it with such naked longing that the air around Emma settles back down again, heavy and oppressive and sluggish, and everything around her seems to waver and Henry-Mary Margaret-David-Regina are all too far to catch her when she falls–

 

No. She blinks. She isn’t falling. Regina is watching Mary Margaret’s face and David and Mary Margaret are looking at the baby and no one seems to notice that she’s shaky with lack of contact and her magic is whispering insecurities into her heart. No one except Henry, whose eyes flicker from the baby to her and back and he has the same face as she does now, she suddenly realizes. And that blue blanket is a dagger to the throat for him. 

 

“Regina, why don’t you come hold him?” Mary Margaret says, eyes still on the baby. 

 

She can’t know what reprieve she’d just offered them, but Emma says anyway, “Henry and I are going to go look around for a bit,” and sleekly dodges Regina’s worried glance as she presses her hand to Henry's shoulder and steers him out of the hospital room, anchoring both of them at once.

 

They walk down to the cafeteria and Henry still hasn’t pulled away from her, which makes this their most successful exchange since he’d found out about his lost memories. And she knows what he’s wondering, what he’s grappling with as strongly as she is, and she thinks it’d be easier to pretend it doesn’t exist like Mary Margaret does. To hide away resentment in favor of smiles and promises of happy families in the future. To build anew on top of crumbling stone.

 

But Henry’s eyes are dull and she knows- she _knows_ \- that she can’t bear a world where he becomes her, unstable even when surrounded by love. She can be impotent for herself but never for him. Not anymore. 

 

She hesitates by a bench in the hall and he sits, staring at the wall. “So they have a new baby now,” he says flatly.

 

“Yeah.” 

 

“And they’re your parents.” 

 

“Yeah.” 

 

He turns to her, eyes suddenly bright with righteous fire. “That sucks.”

 

She laughs, hoarse and choked. “Yeah, it does.” 

 

“I just…” He bites his lip. “I don’t understand. If they did it to you…and then…with me…”

 

Her insides are on fire, her eyes already getting fuzzy, and she doesn’t know how to explain it to him. How to tell him, _I spent seven months in prison afraid to talk to you_. How to explain how little a seventeen-year-old with no prospects could have done for him without him being catapulted into that foster system that had failed her, already damaged and unwanted. 

 

She tries anyway before she can’t speak at all. “I…uh.” She clears her throat. “I guess when you spend so many years wondering about the parents who gave you up…you start thinking about why they would. And you think that they’re…weak, I guess. That they couldn’t give you what you needed.” 

 

Henry listens, silent and as dark-eyed as the mother who’d actually raised him, and she swallows again. “I didn’t know about fairytales or saviors and I sure as hell wouldn’t have believed in them by the time I was locked up. All I knew was the way I’d thought of my parents until then. Weak. Helpless. Terrified. Incapable of…of loving right. And I was seventeen and I thought I was all those things, too, and I guess I knew history was repeating itself and didn’t believe it couldn’t.” 

 

Henry is silent, still chewing on his lip and Emma blinks back tears and waits until he says, “But it didn’t.” 

 

“It didn’t,” she agrees. “You had Regina. And…screwed-up as this whole story is, you had Regina and you had…I mean, you came for me. I know I wasn’t there from the start, not really, but you were healthy and loved and you were happy for a long time before things went sou-sour.” She chokes on her words. “And you became this amazing, driven, stubborn kid who was too smart for his own good and believed in people who didn’t deserve you and…” Her voice trails off and Henry is watching her, his little hands toying with his scarf and they’re already so much bigger than they’d been when they’d first met. She remembers them being tiny and wrapped around her finger but that was all a lie that scrapes her chest raw when she thinks too much about it.

 

His voice comes out as a whisper. “And when you wanted to take me away from here again…that was because you felt weak?”

 

“Henry…” The tears are spilling from her eyes and he isn’t crying but he’s so serious that she wishes he would, that he’d give her some reason to pull him into her arms and hold him forever. That they can bridge this gap again and go back to who they’d been. “Henry, I’m sorry. I never thought you’d even know. I thought you’d be happy again where we’d been happy before. And yeah. Yeah, I was weak.” 

 

“Okay,” Henry says, and he slides closer and pats her shoulder timidly and it isn’t forgiveness, but maybe it’s acceptance for now. Maybe they need to start here. 

 

She takes a deep breath. “Listen, how about we…” Her voice trails off as she looks up and spots Regina coming down the hall. “What’s up?” 

 

Regina’s jaw tightens. “Henry. How’d you like to stay here tonight with David? They’re setting up a cot in the next room and he says you can take the hospital bed.” 

 

“Hospital bed! With controls and everything?” He brightens, as glad to be removed from their conversation as Emma is, and tilts his head and squints at her, then Emma. “And you’re going on a secret mission together? What about Zelena?” 

 

“Zelena doesn’t want the baby tonight.” They’d never confirmed that, but Regina pronounces it with certainty, and Henry pouts and says, “I miss everything fun,” but runs off anyway, the lure of an adjustable bed stronger than mom superheroes, apparently. 

 

She grins to herself before she turns back to Regina. “How are you two doing?” the other woman asks.

 

“We’re okay.” She always feels guilty talking about the tension between her and Henry with Regina. He’s on edge around her and distrusting, but it seems a hell of a lot milder than trying to redesign Mary Margaret’s loft into a fort to protect them from his other mother. Regina might have had more to answer for with him, but she’s fought and fought for their relationship and Emma’s misery now seems to…pale in comparison.

 

But Regina has noticed anyway, of course, observant of every twitch and jerk when Henry is involved. She brushes aside Emma’s dismissal and gives her a look that says something between _I can see right through you_ and _You’re going to be okay_ and then slides down to sit next to her, closer than is probably normal for two people who are…not publicly in any kind of relationship.

 

Which, it occurs to her, is something they should probably talk about. They haven’t even thought to discuss it with anyone except Henry, who’d taken it as a given, and they haven’t really discussed what they’re doing beyond the agreement that they’re _doing_ it. “It” has never been defined as anything from _friends with benefits_ to _permanent life partners_ and they’ve been coasting along just like this, but maybe it’s time they admitted it to her parents, at least. 

 

But this is apparently not the time, since Regina is close just to murmur in her ear, “Whale got a call.” 

 

“Was it Ruby, because she swears that she is done with that disaster–“ 

 

“No, you idiot.” It’s affectionate. Ish. “I don’t know who or what. He turned them down, said he couldn’t break curfew with Snow White in the hospital tonight. And then made some colorful references to my sister.” 

 

Emma sits up, adrenaline replacing the fuzziness of the past few hours. “Zelena is involved in something tonight. Some meeting after curfew.” She glances at her phone. “It’s less than an hour to sunset.” 

 

“Shall we?” Regina rises, smooth and graceful, and extends a hand to her. Emma takes it and stands too close, belligerently so, and Regina rolls her eyes. “Control yourself, Miss Swan.” But she sashays off, leading the way toward the hospital exit.

 

+

 

They’re set up with coffee cups and the patrol car a half hour later, urging stragglers inside as the sun dips low in the sky. Outside, the air is clean and Regina’s perfume is oddly comforting, and Emma thinks for a moment about how fucked up her life is that woman who’d once terrorized her family is the one who lets her breathe and her mother is the one she’s so afraid to be around.

 

To be fair, most of her early time with Regina had served as stress relief before the more euphemistic stress relief had kicked in, and bygones have been left to the past with them. With Mary Margaret, they’re always at peace she doesn’t dare question and then suddenly there’s a new baby in her arms and Emma is terrified to come any closer. She’d never allow any confrontation there, and she doesn’t know how to cope when there isn’t confrontation except to press it all down until it comes bubbling out in an ugly mess. 

 

Regina’s eyes are on her and she keeps her own gaze on the road, driving up and down the blocks near Zelena’s farmhouse and tracking the monkeys circling overhead. They’re out on a mission now, no time for her to take stock of whatever emotions are swirling around in her heart right now. She’s thirty years old. She isn’t going to be a mess over her mother having a new baby.

 

“So!” she says brightly. Regina looks at her askance. “Who would Whale hang out with in town? Does the guy have any friends?” 

 

“Emma,” Regina says, her hand sliding onto Emma's arm, and suddenly Emma feels like crying.

 

Which is absolutely unacceptable. She breathes in through her nose, out through her lips, and thanks whoever looks out for fairytale idiots as she sees a figure cross the road toward Zelena’s land. “Hey. Look at that. Whale’s buddy.” 

 

The man is stocky, something long and thin in his hand, and Regina says in an odd, strained voice, “No. That’s Robin Hood. You have him monitoring Zelena, don’t you?” 

 

“Hm.” She leans forward to squint out the windshield, watching with disappointment as Robin Hood moves toward the woods instead of the house and fades into the dimness there. “You know anything about him?” 

 

“No,” Regina says quickly. 

 

She can’t possibly remember the year before, the first time they’d ever met, according to the memories she’d pried from Robin Hood’s mind. But there’s still something suspicious in the way Regina won’t meet her eyes, like something else had gone on between them beyond the one encounter she knows they’d had here. “Regina.” 

 

“It’s a long story,” Regina hedges. “Aren’t we supposed to be out pretending that you’re not distracting yourself from your new brother?” 

 

Emma’s eyes narrow. “Okay, that was a lower blow than usual. Tell me.”

 

Regina sighs heavily. “It really doesn’t matter.” 

 

“My mother just had a baby who she freely admits was her _second chance_ because I’m all grown up and I’m so unstable about it that we nearly had to deliver him on our own.” It’s easier to talk about it like this, irritated like these are silly little trivialities instead of enough to stop her in her tracks and have her shaking and suffocating. “Humor me. I’ll take a long story.”

 

She pulls over to the side of the road and kills the gas, waiting for Regina to speak. “I…when I was a young queen, Tinkerbell promised once to find me my soulmate. She stole some pixie dust and it led us to a man in a tavern with a lion tattoo on his wrist. I never saw him then. But that same tattoo is on Robin Hood’s arm.”

 

“Oh.” Emma’s skin prickles all over and no, this is worse than before. Everything is worse now, Regina has a _soulmate_ , and apparently she buys into that crap enough to be troubled over it even now. She laughs helplessly. “Maybe you could have mentioned that you were dealing with this back before we started with the kissing?” Today is _not_ going to be the day that she loses everything. Today is the day she captures Zelena and finally feels like she’s back in control of her life and returns to the hospital the triumphant savior.  

 

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t even know the man.”

 

“Maybe you did last year.” Horrifying suspicions are creeping up and he _has_ to be working with Zelena, that has to be the only way, he’d gained Regina’s trust last year and he’s supposed to be seducing her and this is all a lie. “Maybe you fell in love with him last year and you’re going to get your memories back and–“

 

Regina kisses her and she stops talking. Regina kisses are head-spinning, everything at once, demanding like Mayor Mills on her desk with legs crossed and gentle like Regina holding her hand at the town line and promising her happy memories. Regina kisses her and it’s all she is, all both of them are, and Emma hangs on and struggles to remember that this isn’t going to last. 

 

“Idiot,” Regina says again, fingers light against her cheek as she pulls back for a moment. “Why would I want anyone else when I have you?” She kisses her again, short and sweet, and Emma tugs up the armrests between the seat to crawl over to Regina, pulling her up onto her lap. “Whatever happened with that tavern, that was for someone I don’t believe I am anymore. A missed chance, nothing more. Once of thousands. It was just…startling.” Her arms slide around Emma’s back to steady herself, her legs dangling over the side of Emma’s lap and her cheek pressed to hers. “And no, of course I wouldn’t have fallen in love last year. I imagine I was in mourning throughout.”    

 

“For Henry.” 

 

“Right.” 

 

“Did you ever…before…” She stumbles over the words, closing her eyes and feeling the comforting warmth of Regina around her, soft angles against her palms and playful teeth at her neck. “Did you think about this?” She knows she had in that back-of-the-mind _Emma stop obsessing over the sociopathic mother of your child_ kind of way _,_ back before the curse had broken, and then it had been…different. Too many external factors fucking up whatever progress they’d made, portals to other lands and Cora and Pan and even Mary Margaret, and she’d pushed it all aside until they’d started interacting like friends and it had been impossible to avoid.

 

Regina licks her lips. “I thought about it when you cut down part of my apple tree.” Her eyes are suddenly hungry, dark and dangerous. “I wanted to take your chainsaw and throw you up against my tree and…punish you for your insolence.”

 

She’s suddenly all too aware of the stickiness between her legs and she shifts, letting one of Regina’s slide between them. Regina turns, pressing her knee against Emma’s center. “…Yeah?” Emma manages.

 

“Mm.” Regina bites down on her earlobe and hums, “I wanted to punish you _all the time_ that year. And sometimes–“ Her leg slides back up, then down again, a gentle pressure against Emma’s clit. “Sometimes I thought about you punishing me.” 

 

“Throwing you down on your desk,” Emma agrees, trapping Regina’s leg in place. She wiggles in response and Emma gasps, “One- one arm cuffed to the cell bars in the station.” She pulls up Regina’s dress and feels wetness beneath satin, fingers sliding in easily and curling against a bundle of nerves she’s becoming intimately familiar with. “I wanted to do you right up against those columns on your porch.” 

 

Regina’s voice sounds strained. “And here?” 

 

“Backseat.” A dozen scenarios she’d tried with little success to tamp down when everything had been _terrible_ and she’d hated Regina much too much to be this attracted. 

 

“Yes,” Regina pants, grinding her leg against Emma as she rides her fingers. “Over the hood. In your damned Bug. My god, did I think about anything _else_? No wonder I lost,” she sounds irritated and breathless and amused all at once and Emma kisses her neck and pushes her back for a new angle. 

 

A bare toe presses sharply against her clit and Emma comes hard, yanking her fingers up as her body clenches and unclenches and a strangled cry is torn from Regina’s throat. “Em-maaa,” Regina groans, tugging her down on top of her, and they’re all tangled up somewhere near the steering wheel and kissing again, Emma peeling away Regina’s dress to bury her head between her legs. “Emma, Emma, Emma,” Regina chants above her, voice rising and falling with each swell of her abdomen like a song, and she tastes like home. 

 

Regina’s walls begin to clench around her three times before Emma lets her come and by then, Regina’s threats have gotten creative and her magic is winding phantom circles around her nipples and through her belly and down to her own center as well, and when they come it’s together in a shower of sparks. 

 

“What’s a wooden pony? Do I want to know?” she asks after, sliding herself up to kiss Regina’s lips again.

 

“Mm. Someday.” Regina pats her rear promisingly.

 

She snorts. “I can’t take us anywhere, can I?” An instant later she remembers their mission and jerks up so abruptly that she bangs her head on the steering wheel. “Fuck! Did we miss Zelena?” 

 

“Less than a minute and she’s back onto my sister.” Regina sighs, but she’s still sluggish and sated as she sits up, an edge to her voice that promises more if the stakeout is abandoned. “The lights are on in there. And I can feel…malice. A lot of magical energy.” Her voice darkens, serious again. “Zelena’s entertaining.” 

 

“So we go in there. Break it up.” 

 

Regina shakes her head. “We don’t know who we’ll be up against in there. And if she has Rumple with her…” 

 

“We can take them. We did fine last time, didn’t we?” Emma nudges her, watching familiar caution settle onto Regina’s face. It’s here more and more since she’d returned to Storybrooke, the Regina who would willingly charge into any trap and wreak havoc all but buried under an obstinately controlled demeanor. “Stop that. You were talking about fucking me with my nightstick in the backseat _minutes_ ago and now you’re suddenly afraid to lose control?”

 

“Nightstick?” Regina brightens for a moment before she shakes her head. “Emma, no.” 

 

“We’re so strong together,” Emma coaxes. “Give 'em hell with me.” 

 

Regina’s eyes glitter for a moment like temptation, dark and rich and alive with promise. And then it’s gone as quickly as it had come, that secret Regina gone and buried. “You know that doesn’t work out well for me. And Henry–” 

 

“Henry doesn’t even remember what he wants from you.” She catches Regina’s hand and holds it. “Come on, I’m here. We’ll look out for each other.” It’s a promise she doesn’t know she can keep, her skin already buzzing with the need for a new victory, victory after victory after victory tonight because that’s what keeps her going now through the uncertainty. Her mother has a new baby and now she’s going to go savior the fuck out of Zelena because that’s who she is, even when she doesn’t know what else she can be. “You don’t need to be afraid of relapsing into murderville all the time, okay? We’re the good guys.” 

 

“The good guys,” Regina repeats as though she doesn’t quite grasp it, and there’s a sneer on her face for an instant before she folds. “Fine, Emma. What’s your plan?” 

 

_So easy._ It’s oddly reassuring that Regina’s still the same Regina, ready to go with the mildest of assurances. Not everything has changed. “Go in. Grab Zelena. Or the dagger.” 

 

“Remarkable in its simplicity,” Regina says dryly.

 

“You got a better idea?”

 

Regina opens her mouth as though to retort and then seems to reconsider. “No. That sounds…satisfying.” Her eyes gleam again with deadly anticipation and Emma licks her lips, certain that her own eyes mirror Regina’s.

 

They creep out of the car and walk down the road, Regina leading the way and Emma watching behind her for any stragglers. 

 

The house is lit dimly and there are shadows behind the windows, too many to be just Zelena or Gold or Whale’s friend, and for a moment Emma is uncertain. _No_. She straightens, reckless energy returning, because they’re pretty much invincible together and nothing else in the world matters right now except defeating Zelena. Well, that and Henry.

 

Nothing else. “What are you thinking?” she whispers to Regina.

 

Regina tilts her head. “I’m thinking that if we die, Henry’s going to grow up with Snow White.” She clenches her fists. “We’re not dying.” 

 

“Damn straight.”

 

They rush the house as one, the door flying open with a bang with a wave of Regina’s hand, and there’s a moment where they all stare at each other in startled indecision. Zelena is standing in the center of the room, Gold in the background, and arrayed around the living room are shadowy figures, only some of whom Emma recognizes. Albert Spencer, Jefferson, one of the principals from Henry’s school, the flower shop owner…it’s people she’s arrested or wanted to, felt malice from them before. 

 

“What is this, a meeting of villains? And I wasn’t invited?” Regina scoffs, gesturing toward a woman seated cross-legged on the couch. “She sells _ice cream_! I cast life-ruining curses!” She strides forward, magic erupting from her hands, and the room scatters.

 

Zelena waves the dagger lazily. “Regina, Regina, Regina. Get rid of them!”

 

And then Gold is rushing toward them lightning-quick and Emma lets the magic that’s been building within her all day explode at him, white and blue as it combines with Regina’s purple and throws him backward. 

 

Spencer makes an odd strangled noise in his throat and the ice cream lady sits back and watches interestedly. There’s a puff of black magic as someone disappears, and another few make a beeline for the door. 

 

Emma charges forward, eyes only on Zelena.

 

Behind her, Gold is rising again, but he tosses only a glance her way before he charges for Regina instead. “Get the dagger,” he growls, passing close enough to nick her with red energy that makes her whole arm weak. She focuses hard, remembers what she’s learned about healing magic, and presses forward. 

 

Zelena throws her backward and she vaults into the air, remembering one of Regina’s lessons from the past week that she hadn’t been too tired to internalize. She isn’t quite as graceful as Regina but her shields do the trick and she’s bouncing back into Zelena a moment later, hand at her throat. “I’m going to kill you.” 

 

Across the room, someone in the shadows transforms, and Emma sees it only out of the corner of her eye before there’s a lion- a _lion!-_ pouncing across the room, batting her aside as Zelena straightens. _No, no, no_. She’s not done here, she’s going to stop Zelena tonight, she’s going to _win_ and she’s going to save this fucking town and _why are there lions_?

 

Zelena snaps out a new command to Gold and Emma turns frantically, too much happening around her to keep track of. The lion is growling like it’s about to charge at her and from the corner of her eye, she sees Regina with a hand outstretched, a pixie-tiny woman Emma doesn’t recognize struggling against bonds that hold her to it. She’s struggling for breath and Regina looks positively gleeful about it.

 

“Well, look at that,” Zelena drawls, looking interested again. Because Regina, _Regina_ , all she cares about and Emma lashes out wildly at the lion to get past it to the witch. Zelena cackles once and the lion roars and there’s blue light everywhere and then–

 

Zelena is gone, Gold with her, and the lion is shrinking back into a man and slipping out the door. “No!” Emma snaps, hands still surging with energy. From the corner of her eye she sees the ice cream lady still on the couch, head tilted and eyes bright. The pixie kicks at Regina and Regina laughs, low and deep, and spins around to rejoin Emma.

 

“We’re not done. What did she want from you?” There are only a few guests remaining who haven’t managed to run, and Regina’s eyes light onto Spencer, hiding shamelessly behind a recliner. “George! Get out here.” 

 

He crawls out and Regina stalks forward, and Emma feels a new surge of hatred toward the man. Easy hate. Simple hate, like standing on a battlefield and seeing an enemy with nothing in his eyes. He’s tried to hurt just about _everyone_ she loves, and now he has the audacity to ally with Zelena? “Tell us what Zelena’s planning,” she growls. 

 

He laughs. “You? I don’t think so.” 

 

Fury fills her, so _easy_ when it’s directed at him. She’d held his heart in her hands before and she’ll do it again, take it from him and squeeze until he’s lying on the floor and screaming for mercy, and there’s a fuzziness in her ears and blood in her eyes and Regina is hissing something beside her and when she looks down, there it is. There’s the heart in her hands. 

 

She squeezes it and he howls and she squeezes it harder, blood thumping against her hand and she suddenly feels too removed from this situation, Spencer is too distant and holding a heart isn’t close enough and she wants him to _hurt_. 

 

She hands off the heart to Regina without a thought and throws Spencer against the wall with a flash of deep blue magic the color of the night sky. “Tell me.” 

 

He laughs, shuddering with terror and defiance, and she punches him in the face, punches him in the gut, drives her fingers into his empty chest and calls forth fire until he howls. Regina clenches his heart and he screams and coughs blood all over Emma and she suddenly notices just how oldhe is, looking more and more aged by the moment. She thinks she should be taken aback but instead she’s satisfied and craving _more, more,_ to hurt someone she can hurt without losing herself.

 

It’s like battling Walsh except it’s simpler, less emotion and more…stress relief, again. Spencer grunts out a curse and Regina squeezes again, tight and loose and tight and loose and every time he breathes, Emma sends blue-hot fingers raking down his neck and chest and face and it feels so good. 

 

Spencer laughs again, like frail little puffs of air, and looks up at Regina. “So…you’ve corrupted the so-called… _savior_ …at last.” 

 

Regina recoils like she’s been slapped. Emma says, “Fuck you,” and punches him in the mouth. “Tell me what she wanted you for.” 

 

“Early…alliance,” he croaks. Emma presses her fingers to his throat. “For when she takes over this town.” 

 

Her fingers light on fire and burn his throat and then suddenly there’s a hand on her shoulder, pulling her away. Regina’s face has taken on an unnatural pallor and she shakes her head. “Emma. We’ve gone too far. We were supposed to… _Emma_.” Emma is still struggling forward and then Regina’s dragging her backward, away from Spencer as he sinks to the ground, unconscious. 

 

And she finally sees her handiwork, Spencer a mess of bruises and burns and unrecognizable under a latticework of purple that covers every inch of exposed skin on his body. His face is swollen and his expensive suit is all but disintegrated and he looks defeated, utterly defeated, and Regina cradles the heart in her hand and gasps out a sob. “Oh, no, Emma what have we done?”

 

Emma had promised that they’d look out for each other and she thinks she should feel guilty for letting Regina down, but all she can see when she looks at Spencer is another man who wouldn’t hesitate to murder her family. A worthless, wicked man who doesn’t deserve their mercy. “Give me his heart,” she says.

 

Regina jerks. “What?” 

 

“Give it to me.” She’s aware suddenly that the ice cream lady is still on the couch, hunger in her eyes, and then Emma turns for a moment and she’s gone like she’d never been there at all. “We get…we get rid of him. Leave him here for Zelena to find.” 

 

Regina shakes her head violently. “Emma, I’m not going to let you kill someone else! I shouldn’t have even…” She looks helpless, lost like she hadn’t when she’d been attacking the pixie or Spencer earlier. “I’m trying to change. I thought I was changing.” 

 

“He’s a bad guy. We know he’s a bad guy.” She touches Regina’s arm. “This is what we do.”

 

“Like this?” Regina shudders. “No. This is what I _did_.” She presses the heart into Spencer’s chest very suddenly, down to a crouch before Emma can stop her. And she turns and looks up at Emma like she’s broken something unforgivable. “Maybe it’s what I do. But not what you do. Never what you do.” 

 

Irritation bursts free in a wave cast days ago, from every disapproving look and hesitation, and Emma clenches her fists. “What do you know about what I do? You don’t know what I’m capable of. This isn’t some…falling off the wagon, Regina, he was working with Zelena. He’d watch us all burn and laugh over the ashes. Why shouldn’t we kill him and keep everyone safe?” 

 

“I don’t know.” Regina stands up, rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes and pushing her hair back with unsteady fingers. “I don’t know what I _should_ do anymore. I don’t even–“ She shakes her head. “I just know what you do. And it isn’t any of this.” Her eyes are downcast, pained like they’d been the first time she’d whispered _You can use magic_ over a year ago on her porch and it’s unfair, it’s Regina pushing ideals on her too, and she’s so tired of it.

 

She holds out a hand. “Please, Emma. Let’s just go.” She looks down at Spencer with distaste and waves her other hand above him for a moment. “He won’t remember anything from before we entered the room. Maybe he’ll survive. Maybe not.” 

 

Her hand is still out and Emma grits her teeth and walks past her to the door outside, her fists still shaking like she’s been left impotent again, strangled by her own inability to finish anything. _Some savior_ , she thinks, reminding herself again of stories of Spencer as King George with David in his grasp, of Spencer who would frame Ruby and put Mary Margaret in prison and who’s absolutely vile. 

 

Maybe Regina’s right and this isn’t how she’d gone about things in the past. But she hadn’t won anything in the past, either, and any regret or horror she tries to summon up for Spencer feels fabricated, emotion she’s trying to emulate instead of real concern. 

 

With Walsh, it had hit hard. With Spencer, it’s beginning to feel like a habit. And she’s never felt more capable of protecting the people she loves than when she acknowledges that. No matter how far she is from whoever Regina thinks she is.

 

She heads for the car, a smile settling onto her face like a frightening simulacrum of satisfaction. 


	11. Chapter 11

**xx. revocation**

Emma is driving at a decent speed, pausing at stop signs and jerking the turn signal and all in all, it’s the safest she’s ever driven with Regina in the car. If not for the way that she hasn’t moved at all since they’d gotten into the car and the gritted smile she has forced onto her face, Regina might’ve even been gratified at the effort.

 

Instead she’s shaken and worried and tense, her own fists clenched and her heart wild and she hasn’t felt like this since she’d been a teenager with an unpredictably powerful mother. Her own magic is thrumming within her, under control but with old temptations wrought into it, and she can taste it like bile in her throat.

 

She’s gotten so far. She’s never seen magic as an addiction as much as she had her desire to control _hearts_ , real and figurative, to earn and keep love at any cost and punish those who would take it from her. And she’d picked up dozens of bad behaviors along the way, habits forming to control those around her, to force love and lash out with no thought of the people she’d hurt.

 

And then she’d spent over a year unlearning old behaviors, trying her hardest for Henry, and it’s frightening to realize how easily she can fall back into them with a partner. She’d stayed in the house for an extra minute, gripped by regret, and made a garbled phone call to the hospital reporting George’s condition and location. The idea of anyone venturing out after an enforced curfew- _to Zelena’s house_ \- is unlikely; but then, George is one of the wealthiest men in town. His chances are good.

 

She still feels sick about it. Not about George himself, not really. She’d barely done more than squeeze his heart. But the bloodlust- the desire to unleash chaos and destruction- that had emerged as though she’d never tamped it down, gleeful and strong as ever and what the hell has she been doing all this time if it’s so easy to fall again? For Henry? 

 

 _For herself?_ She shudders and stares out the windshield into the dim night. Somewhere along the way she’d started to treasure things she never had before- the soaring sensation that accompanies the knowledge that she’s making the right choice, smiles and comfort and having so many people to love, the freedom from stifling hate and rage and despair that had consumed her for so long. Somewhere along the way she’d learned to make herself whole instead of arming herself by clawing off pieces of who she could be, and she’d surrendered it all in an instant. 

 

And Emma Swan who she…cares for…is falling into Regina’s old patterns at the same time. She spares a peek at her and sees her head up, face set, smile firmly in place as though she can persuade herself that they’ve done something good today. As though if she pretends it doesn’t matter for long enough, she can begin to believe that.

 

Regina had once dressed in black and tied back her hair and plastered a smile on her face and then she’d gone to Rumple and killed a woman. And she’d never looked back.

 

Emma stares straight ahead.

 

She ventures, “Emma–“ 

 

“Save it.” The car turns in a perfect L, down the corner toward the docks.

 

She’s annoyed despite herself. “I’m sorry, am I getting in the way of your pity party? Would you rather I smiled too?” 

 

The car rolls to a stop. Emma turns the wheel robotically and parallel parks with precision before she whirls around to her. “I am _trying_ to find Zelena. And unless you have something productive to do other than judge me for not being your fucking savior, then you can let me actually do my job.” The smile returns to her face and now it looks painful, like she’s moments away from cracking.

 

“All right. Are we planning on torturing my sister, too?” Somewhere in her mind there’s a twinge of uncertainty there with the words _my sister_ , nausea rising at just the thought of Zelena in any state like George had been. Oh, she wants to defeat Zelena, to watch her on the ground, angry and impotent and humiliated. But the idea of her so utterly destroyed makes her uneasy, like missed chances and a longing for  _family_ that doesn’t have to be toxic if maybe they’re both willing to try. Which is absurd and sentimental in idealistic ways and she isn’t a Snow-White-style fool. She knows better than that.

 

She rubs bent fingers against her temples and Emma says, “Regina,” and it’s pained but dangerous, like a wounded animal backed against a wall. “Don’t do this. We can’t afford to second-guess ourselves right now. We _can’t_. This town needs us.”

 

“The town,” Regina repeats, not without skepticism. But Emma looks exhausted now, like the weight of the town really is resting on her shoulders. 

 

It’s never been like this before. When others had threatened Storybrooke- Regina included- the fights had been swift and sacrifices had been made and then it had all been over. It’s never been like this, day in and day out, a witch on the loose and taking prisoners every time they aren’t quick enough. And it’s wearing Emma down, forcing her into responsibilities she hasn’t been able to flee.

 

“You wanted to run away from here.”

 

“But I didn’t.” Emma stares at the dashboard. “Zelena found me in the woods that first day after Walsh, did you know that?” 

 

“I didn’t.” She knows that Zelena had taunted Emma at some point, preyed on insecurities and infuriated Emma enough to send her into this singleminded vendetta. She hadn’t known that Emma had _stayed in town_ over it. 

 

They really are sisters, aren’t they? 

 

She bites back the wistfulness and focuses on Emma. “I need to stop her,” Emma says firmly, and starts the car again. “And yeah, if we need to do what we did to George to her, I have to know that you’re with me in this.” 

 

Regina’s eyes narrow and she’s silent, helpless and angry and lost, and she doesn’t know how to do any of this when Emma isn’t on her side. Emma who finds her when no one else notices she’s gone and Emma who runs to support her when she’s attacked. Emma who’d had faith in her when she’d finally started trying and Emma who’d never seen the Evil Queen when she’d looked at her.

 

Emma is someone else now, possessed by her reckless determination and with the powers to support it, and she doesn’t know how to guide someone as Emma had done her. Not when Emma doesn’t want to be guided. (Who’s guiding Regina herself now?)

 

“Fine.” Emma’s jaw tightens. “I’m not…Wait. Do you see that?” She’s squinting out the windshield again, hostility gone in an instant as she focuses on what she’s seeing.

 

Regina leans forward, making out a dark shape up ahead as it dips into their line of sight. And then out again, turning the corner with a whoosh of shadowy wings. “A flying monkey.” 

 

“It looks like it’s _going_ somewhere. Not just collecting people.” The car glides forward, headlights off and Emma’s foot barely on the gas. They roll forward, rounding the corner behind it. 

 

The monkey turns and then flaps harder, speeding up but still low on the ground as though it’s being weighed down. They follow, suddenly intent on their mission, and this is simpler than thinking about what might happen once they follow it to its master. They turn another corner, then another, then–

 

“Emma!” A cry splits the air, loud enough for Regina to hear over the sound of the car. “Emma!” 

 

Emma hits the brakes. “We don’t have _time_ for this,” she growls, but she rolls down the window and barks out, “What?”

 

A girl is running to the car, a crying child clutched to her. Regina recognizes the girl as…Ashley, maybe. The first to give birth in twenty-eight years and a friend of Snow White’s. “Emma, she’s feverish and Tylenol isn’t working. I need to get her to the hospital. She has these head colds–” She shakes her head, glancing up wildly. “Dr. Whale helps. I need to get her to Dr. Whale.” 

 

“Oh.” Emma breathes in, long and slow, and Regina isn’t surprised when she says, “You’re going to have to wait until morning. There’s a curfew for a reason. We’ve already seen a flying monkey tonight.” 

 

Ashley stares at her for a moment, uncomprehending. “Can’t you give me a ride then?” 

 

Again, Emma’s face hardens. “Ashley, we’re following a lead right now. We can’t stop. You’ll have to go in the morning. I’m sure she’ll be fine until then.” She leans over and Regina leans with her, spotting the way the baby is twitching in her mother’s arms, struggling to break free. She looks flushed with tears and there are spots of red high on her cheeks and Regina’s hand is on the door handle before she can move. 

 

Emma shuts the window as Ashley protests, slamming the car into drive. “What the hell are you doing?” she demands, foot on the gas. 

 

“What are you doing?” Regina echoes. “Emma, this isn’t–“ 

 

“Do _not_ tell me that this isn’t me.” Emma presses her hands against the steering wheel, somewhere between petulant and defiant. “You have no idea who I am.”

 

“All right. So we're going to let that baby…be sick? Hope for the best?”

 

“It’s Ashley,” Emma says, exasperated. “She takes Alex to the hospital when she coughs wrong. _Every time_. She’ll get over it. Now can we please go back to Zelena?” She hits the gas again and Regina cranes her neck to stare behind them. Alex is still howling, waving tiny arms and struggling to get away from her mother, and Ashley has begun to walk the opposite way down the block. 

 

Toward the hospital.

 

There’s a screech above Ashley and Regina is gone to stand beside her in a puff of smoke, waving the monkey away with a purple flash from her hand. It hovers near the end of the block, looming threateningly, and Ashley gapes up at it.

 

There’s a honk and then Emma is speeding up ahead of them, going into reverse so she can snap out the window, “Are you coming or not?” 

 

Ashley brightens. “I’m-“ 

 

“Not you.” Emma glares at Regina, irritation warring with need on her face. “Regina. Are you with me?”

 

It’s ironic how in that moment her first thought is  _What would Emma do?_ And Emma purports that she doesn’t know that at all. “We’re the good guys.” She repeats Emma’s words from earlier tonight, before they’d both let rage overwhelm them, and she still doesn’t believe them. They still sound like pretty lies to wrap up whatever crimes they commit, like the lies she’d hidden within as a queen bent on destruction. “We have to…” She waves vaguely at Ashley, who’s looking from one of them to the other.

 

Emma’s eyes harden and she waits another moment. “Regina. Come with me.” Now there’s pleading in Emma's voice that she can’t disguise. “We’ve got to find Zelena. We can’t finish off tonight with just what happened at…” It’s the closest she’s come to admitting that she isn’t as okay with George as she’s been trying to convince both of them, and Regina cravesin that moment to go with her, to cede and comfort and find whatever little light is left in both of them still.

 

And then little hands touch her arm and clutch at it and the sobbing baby looks up at her with frightened eyes and it isn’t even a question. She remembers Henry at this age, toddling around and not quite talking yet and helpless and afraid when sick. And what Emma would do seems meaningless when she knows what _she_ would do, what this child needs.

 

She takes the baby from Ashley and ignores the way Ashley flinches- from the Evil Queen, of course, because who else is she?- and Emma doesn’t even bid her goodbye, just slams her foot down on the gas and takes off after the monkey. 

 

Alex mumbles, “Mama,” and cries again, shrinking back into Regina’s arms.

 

“Henry was the same way when he was sick sometimes,” Regina says, smiling awkwardly at the woman beside her. Ashley is staring at the way she holds the baby and she rearranges her arms, self-conscious. “He would be so angry at me for how he was feeling, like he didn’t understand why I couldn’t make it stop.” It would kill her, sitting with Archie in her office as he’d reach chubby little arms for him and she’d cling to Henry, unwilling to cede her hold of him. It had been frustrating and infuriating and heartbreaking to be so rejected and she hadn’t taken it well.

 

She’d thought _that_ would be the worst of it, back then.

 

“It’s fine,” Ashley shrugs, eyes still on her. “I just–“ Her hand creeps down to her pocket before she notices that Regina is watching her. She flushes and puts her hands together again. 

 

Regina sets the pace in the opposite direction that Emma had driven, Alex silent but still clinging to her, whispering, “Mama, Mama, Mama?”

 

“Your mama is right here with us,” Regina murmurs back. They’re not close to the center of town, but that only means a ten-minute walk at best. She quickens her step and Ashley hurries to keep up with her. “You said this happens often?” The baby is cooling down now that she’s stopped screaming, and she’s breathing easily without congestion.

 

Ashley bobs her head. “Yes?” she says, almost uncertainly. Regina glances at her again. She bites her lip and falls silent, her hand sliding into her pocket again. 

 

They walk quietly, Alex still wrapped around Regina and Ashley toying with whatever it is that’s in her pocket. She looks pale, afraid, glancing up at the sky worriedly, and then warily back at Regina. Which is to be expected, no matter what thoughts of redemption Regina had once entertained. She feels a flash of irritation that she tamps down.

 

She doesn’t require acceptance from the townspeople, nor does she believe she’ll ever get it. They don’t take kindly to being uprooted and imprisoned for her personal vendettas, and she’s sure that she could sacrifice herself to make amends dozens of times and she’ll still be the most despised person in town. 

 

Which is fair and unfair all at once, but she grits her teeth and smiles and this still feels _right_ , right like earlier had been so wholly wrong. And little Alex holds onto her trustingly, still mumbling her mother’s name as though it’s the only word she knows and glancing, frightened, back to the girl walking just behind them. 

 

They reach the hospital and Whale is already in the waiting room just outside the emergency room doors, eyes darting from Ashley to Regina. “I got your call. Let’s see the little one,” he says, reaching for Alex. 

 

Alex squirms, arms tight around Regina, and both Ashley and Whale have to pry her loose before they vanish into the hospital, wrestling with a now-screaming baby again through the double doors into the hall.

 

Regina watches them go, feeling an odd dread about the whole matter and thinking about Emma, somewhere out there alone and desperate to change the night from…whatever earlier had been…to a win. She fidgets with her phone, hesitates, then scrolls to Emma’s name on her favorites.

 

There’s no answer and she shuts her eyes and mutters out a low, “Fuck.” 

 

It isn’t her job to be Emma’s babysitter- except maybe it is now. Emma had done plenty of that in the past when it had been Regina who’d been flailing. She closes her eyes and thinks about Emma in the mines under Storybrooke with a trigger in front of her, Emma on the other side of a tree in Neverland muttering, _We’ll find him_ as the moon shines down on them through the trees, Emma seated at her table in her office admitting belief in Regina and her love for Henry. 

 

She hits the call button again and this time it cuts to voicemail two rings in. 

 

“Mom?” She looks up, catching sight of Henry from across the hall. He’s got an ice cream sandwich in one hand and a bag of chips in the other, but she chooses not to comment on it. “Why are you here? Is everything okay with Ma?” He looks worriedly at the emergency room doors.

 

“It’s fine,” she hurries to assure him, sinking down into the closest seat. “Emma is still out hunting Zelena. I had to help someone along the way.” Being in the hospital like this, sitting beside Henry in a brightly lit room as though she hadn’t had someone’s heart in her hand earlier that night and wanted to kill everyone in sight…it’s an odd kind of cognitive dissonance, where it doesn’t feel quite as uncharacteristic as it probably should. 

 

She breathes and her lungs fill with clean air, untainted and less suffocating than Zelena’s dusty house had been. “We had to do some bad things tonight to some bad people, Henry.” She feels obligated to offer him her confessional, even this Henry who doesn’t remember her. They’ve been rebuilding their relationship on honesty and trust, and Henry values both just as much now as he ever has. 

 

He regards her thoughtfully. “Like Walsh?” 

 

“A bit like Walsh.” She closes her eyes. “I think…I’m still that villain in your book sometimes. I’m sorry.” 

 

A hand on her shoulder, and she’s suddenly reminded of Henry of a year ago, red-cheeked from the alarm that the new curse had evoked in the town and his firm pronouncement. _You’re not a villain. You’re my mom._ And she hadn’t had much more to cling to than that.

 

But this Henry says, “Okay,” and he looks uncertain about it before he says, “Ma used to– I mean I know she used to hurt the bad guys too. Back at home. That was okay. I don’t like seeing it, but that was okay.” 

 

“This doesn’t have to be,” she says gently. “I’m not sure I’m okay with it, either.”

 

His face darkens and he says, a hopeless tinge to his voice, “What am I supposed to feel about it then? You’re my _moms_. You’re the heroes, right?” He shakes his head, like black and white are all muddled in his mind and he hasn’t figured out how to understand the grey that emerges. “Isn’t that what you are now?” 

 

“Something like that,” she murmurs, troubled again. “I’m not much for labels either way.” She’d raised Henry, somehow, to believe in heroes and villains, to see himself as the white knight that Regina herself had given up on decades ago. And this is a Henry who’d write essays humanizing villains but now that it’s close to home he’s struggling again, trying to see simplicity where none exists. “I wish I could make this easier for you.”

 

“Tell me what you were like,” Henry says suddenly. “When you were my age.”

 

She blinks at him. He stares back, lip trembling. “It doesn’t change–“ 

 

“I know. Tell me anyway.” 

 

She leans back and huffs out a tiny sigh. “It was…a long time ago. I was a girl. I loved to ride, I loved to read, I’m sure I talked back to my mother a bit more than she’d have liked…” She nibbles at her lip and remembers punishments, being frozen in place at the dinner table for a day to _learn what insolence brings_ and being attacked with magic that had felt like it had been tearing her apart and never left a mark. “I spent a lot of time learning how to eat properly and the right ways to curtsy and I’d run off into the woods and hide from it all sometimes. Mother thought I would be queen but I would watch the villagers dancing in the moonlight and that was all I truly wanted.” 

 

“To dance in the moonlight?” Henry asks, and she’d given him a very different answer the last time he’d asked about this, before he can remember. She’d told him a story laced with magic about a happy family and a neighbor boy named Daniel and true love tragically destroyed by an accident of some sort. She’d told him a fairytale then, and now he gets only her life.

 

She laughs. “I dreamed…I saw only their happiness and so little of starvation and tyrants and poverty. I had no idea that their lives were never so simple.” She sighs, wistful. “I don’t know if my mind would have been changed if I had known.” 

 

He looks so solemn, so serious that her heart pounds with dread and hope at once. “What do you dream about now?” 

 

“You, sweetheart. Only you.” She smooths his hair down where it’s getting shaggy near the bottom of his forehead, brushing it to one side so she can still see his dark eyes as they watch her. “And Emma, sometimes. And maybe a world where good and simple is clearer for all of us.” 

 

“I want that too,” Henry agrees, and he leans against her shoulder and closes his eyes.

 

She thinks about Emma, hunched over in her car and avoiding her phone calls, angry and determined and looking for demons in the dark. She thinks of Emma lashing out with a hand at Zelena’s neck and a hand in George’s chest and hand-over-hand on the steering wheel, that awful smile on her face.

 

Henry shouldn’t be bearing this alone, but neither should she. Not when she’s wavering just as much as Emma is these days, when it’s so easy to fall into bad habits. She can’t trust herself to make the right decisions here.

 

She swallows her pride and waits until Henry shifts before she says, “Let’s go upstairs and check on your grandmother.”

 

He gives her an odd look but he bobs his head willingly and leads the way up the stairs, their fingers tangling together somewhere along the way to the small maternity unit where Snow is sleeping. There’s a faint shiver down her spine as they pass into Regina’s magical wards and she tightens her grip on Henry.

 

Snow looks up when they enter the room, eyes brightening. “Back already? Where’s Emma?” She cranes her neck to look behind them, brow wrinkling when she doesn’t find her daughter.

 

“Henry, do you mind–?” Regina starts, and then stops helplessly as he turns knowing eyes on her. She meets them evenly, summoning up all the willpower she has not to crack and admit to him exactly why she’d wanted to see Snow.

 

He sighs heavily. “Yeah, I’ll go see what David’s up to. You have your secret…conference thing.” He hugs her anyway, quick and one-armed, and flashes her a smile as he ducks out of the room.

 

Snow frowns, cradling her baby tighter. “Where’s Emma?” she repeats, a tremor in her voice.

 

Regina tells her. She tells her about Emma’s magic gone haywire, about Walsh, about Zelena and Emma’s magical barrier and King George and even Ashley. She’s careful, couching it all in words that make it lighter, less dangerous and more accidental, and she doesn’t even realize until she’s done that Snow’s hand is on hers and her eyes are bright as she shakes her head.

 

“Regina, no,” she says.

 

“I know it’s a lot to take in and you have…other people on your mind right now–“ And she’s sympathetic except that she isn’t, that this new baby is half the reason she blames Snow for what’s been going on with Emma, and she can’t imagine a world where she’d stop thinking about Henry for a moment no matter who else she loves. “You need to tell me what to do about it.” 

 

“Regina, _no_ ,” Snow says again, and Regina blinks up at her, for the first time considering that Snow may not be exonerating her of this responsibility. And Snow looks disturbed, but her next sentence disabuses Regina of any notion that it might be about Emma. “It must be exhausting to be so…You can’t always see so much darkness in others. I know you were angry for a long time, but I thought that you two were getting along.” 

 

“We are.” This is confusing and infuriating and she rubs her palms hard against her blazer as though it might clear things up. “I’m not inventing darkness. I’m trying to talk to you about your daughter.”

 

Snow frowns, clutching her other baby even more tightly and angling him away from Regina. _Typical._ “There’s always more to the story. I know you’re drawing conclusions from what you’ve seen, but isn’t it possible that you’re _looking_ for a reason to backslide now?” Regina recoils. “That imagining Emma having these…urges…would make it easier for you to jump right in with her?” Snow looks suddenly sympathetic, and she squeezes Regina’s hand. “I know that change isn’t easy. But you’ve been doing so much good since Neverland…I know you can overcome this.” 

 

Regina wrenches her hand free. “Overcome Emma beating King George bloody? Losing control of her magic until it takes over her? Trapping you in that damned crib tornado?” she says incredulously. “Even you can’t be this much of an idiot. You can't possibly believe that…believe that…”

 

 _Believe that I’m making this up_ , she thinks, but Snow is blinking at her like she does in fact believe that and Regina backs up, incredulous. “Regina,” Snow murmurs. “I know it’s hard to see the good in people– especially me and my family,” she says, laughing lightly. “But you have to understand Emma’s reasons for how she’s keeping us safe. And you’re helping her with her magic so there’ll be no more accidents. There’s no need to worry like this.”

 

“I’ve been training her. I _know–_ “ She begins, and then she hears her name floating down the hall. 

 

“Regina?” Ashley is asking timidly. She hasn’t left the stairwell yet, and she’s looking up and down the halls, arms around her stomach and looking wholly intimidated by the idea of coming any closer, and Regina stalks out of Snow’s room without another word of frustrated argument (“Regina. Regina, _wait,_ ” comes the voice filtering after her from Snow’s room.) to join her. “Mayor Mills,” Ashley says, brightening. “Alexandra is fine. Dr. Whale is keeping her overnight for observation, but he doesn’t think her fever will amount to anything.” She beams. “Thank you for your help.” 

 

“It was my pleasure.” Regina inclines her head, a polite smile forcing its way onto her face. “I do what I can for my constituents.” 

 

Ashley grins at her, whatever tension she’d been displaying before all but gone with the baby’s good health. “Would you mind walking me home?” 

 

“Not at all.” There’s a part of her that’s relieved to be escaping Snow’s certainty and faith in Emma, another nail in Emma’s coffin as she descends into whatever depths she refuses to be pulled from. “You won’t stay with Alexandra tonight?” 

 

Ashley shakes her head. “She’s better off if I’m not there, I think. She’ll sleep better,” she clarifies. “I don’t sleep very well.” 

 

“I see.”

 

“Thank you.” They descend the stairs and walk toward the exit and Ashley blushes. “I mean, you didn’t have to help me. I thought you were…” 

 

“The Evil Queen?” Regina suggests. She sighs. “As far as the town is concerned, dear, I still am.” 

 

Ashley shakes her head vigorously. “You don’t seem like it to me,” she says boldly. “You seemed like a mother with Alex.”

 

“Well, I’m that too.” They pick up a steady pace, faster than before, Ashley’s hand still in her pocket as her other one wriggles her fingers together and rests them against her abdomen again. “I’m sure you know Henry.” 

 

She nods. “Sure. But I didn’t know that…I didn’t know my mother,” she mumbles. “I don’t really know how it works sometimes.” 

 

Regina rolls her eyes. “Sometimes no mother is preferable. Especially when you’re raising a child.” She remembers times when her voice had gotten low and dangerous and she’d heard her mother’s voice emerging from her throat and fled from Henry in a panic. She had never learned violence from her mother- not until her magic had returned and she’d pushed Henry to David in a panic- but she’d learned control and domination and it had taken all she had to unlearn them again. “You find yourself repeating your mother’s mistakes and watching your child suffer and it’s…it’s a trial to overcome that.” 

 

“I see.” Ashley is still studying her like she’s an enigma and Regina quickens their pace, self-conscious under her scrutiny. “And your son is why you aren’t the Evil Queen anymore?”

 

The girl beside her is all wide-eyed curiosity, listening to everything she says as though she _cares_ , and Regina warms up to the topic more than she ordinarily would around a townsperson. “Henry, yes. I found that…I didn’t want to hurt him anymore. And that meant putting aside my own agendas to make peace with the rest of his family. And somewhere along the way…” 

 

She shrugs, uncomfortable. “I didn’t want to be that queen again. I never had wanted to be a queen in the first place. It had just been the only power over my life that I’d known. And one day I discovered that I had more than power, I had love and family and…” They’re nearing Ashley’s house but Ashley is still staring at her, hanging onto her every word with what can’t possibly be longing or disdain or something in between. “And I saw another way.” 

 

“You really have changed,” Ashley says. Her words are neutral but the bite to them is more like a snarl, and Regina turns just as her hand emerges from her pocket. She’s holding a long, thin silver needle between her forefinger and her thumb and she seizes Regina’s hand with the other hand and Regina is too startled to react, not to the needle that feels like it’s imbued with her magic. Not to Ashley’s face twisting into mocking hostility. 

 

Not to the green smoke that whirls around them for a moment before settling down to reveal the woman holding the needle.

 

“Bully for you,” Zelena says, and buries the needle in Regina's palm.

 

She thinks of Emma and descends into a darkness deeper than Snow White could ever dream exists.

 

Or rather, one Snow White would know all too well.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm so late! My whole household has been ill and writing time has been sparse. I'll try to get to comments once it hurts a little less to look at the screen, lol.
> 
> Warning this chapter for police corruption and brutality. (not enough that I would normally warn for violence, tbh, but this week is one when it might be an especially sensitive topic so here you go~)

**xxi. obfuscation**

“So do we get paid for this, or do you expect us to do free labor for the sheriff’s department?” one of the boys asks, leaning forward challengingly. 

 

Regina purses her lips. “You work as Emma’s deputies or you get turned into a monkey. Is that understood?” She gets a grumble in response and Regina sets a warning hand on his shoulder. He recoils, looking frightened. “Is that understood, Nickels?” she repeats, voice dangerous, and Emma glances over at her, taken aback by the expression on her face. 

 

“Yes, ma’am. Mayor Mills, Ma’am.” Nickels manages an unsteady dip like a bow and then backs up behind one of the others.

 

“Regina.” Emma grasps her arm and Regina looks uneasy at the contact, magic thrumming under it like agitated energy. She releases it at once, jamming it upward awkwardly to massage the bridge of her nose instead.

 

She’d driven back to Regina’s mansion last night, still tense and dissatisfied and frustrated at another failed evening, and she’d thought…that maybe this could be like all the other times. That maybe they could fold into bed together and pretend that none of what they’d done before had mattered. She’d forced away resentment born from irrational betrayal and made her way up the stairs to Regina’s room.

 

It had been locked.

 

She’d touched the doorknob, felt it cool under her fingers, had waited for a moment and shoved her fingers at the door like maybe it’d been an accidental knock. Nothing.

 

She’d taken the guest room and steamed over it until devastation had set in, the dawning suspicion that she’d lost Regina. That somehow, tonight had been the last straw- and then she’s remembering horror on Regina’s face, tension about Zelena and Spencer and _we’ll look out for each other_ and she'd slumped against her bed, uncomfortable guilt settling in.

 

She’d written a texted apology and then deleted it, written a texted accusation and then deleted _that_ ,  had reached out with her magic toward the wall that separated their rooms and found nothing there but a glancing barrier that had her head pounding in agony when she’d touched it.

 

Regina had been done with her at last, it had seemed, and she’d nearly gotten up and driven out to the town line just over that. Only thoughts of Henry protesting, Henry’s disappointment, the frightening awareness that _Henry wouldn’t come_ had kept her rooted in place, furious and terrified and miserable and second-guessing all the decisions that had made sense before the sun had started to rise.

 

But then morning had come and Regina had been distant but cordial, cooking them both a fruity oatmeal and speaking nothing of last night. She flinches when Emma touches her and is guarded in her responses but she’s _there_ and she isn’t hostile and Emma had been so relieved she hadn’t even questioned it when Regina had arrived at lunch with a crowd of miscreants.

 

But now Regina is tense again, eyes wary as she follows Emma back into the sheriff's office. “I…uh…” Emma nearly lurches forward to touch her arm again before she remembers Regina’s last reaction to it. Her skin burns like it’s been too long and it’s parched with lack of Regina. Last night, buried within her, seems like forever ago now. When had she become this person who _needs_ so deeply? (Since Regina had kissed her forehead and she’d found her place in her touch, and decades of longing had finally begun to come together.) “You know I work best alone.” 

 

Regina smiles at her with amusement behind her eyes and Emma _knows_ this smile, recognizes it from another day and something…different. She shoves aside the thought and focuses on the here and now and what this new challenge Regina is sending her way is. “I think- after last night,” she says delicately, and Emma burns with uncertain humiliation. In the light of day, ignoring Ashley to spend hours stalking a suspicious monkey on a fruitless search seems…unwise, at best. And with Regina suddenly so distant, it’s been a grievous error. 

 

“You don’t need to get caught up in the troubles of the villagers when Zelena is on the loose. Who knows what she’s planning?” Regina’s eyes gleam brighter and Emma breathes, relief suffusing her at once.

 

“You’re…helping me. Because of last night,” she says, disbelieving.

 

“Have you ever spent ten minutes walking with that little brat hanging onto you?” Regina shakes her head. “And the baby was annoying, too. I could have been trying to kill Zelena with you.”

 

“Now you want to kill Zelena? I thought you were getting fuzzy sister feelings last night.” It’s too good to be true, too _easy_ , Regina finally on the same wavelength as she is and not a single resentment from their tiff in the car. 

 

She lurches forward on a whim and lays her palm against Regina’s shoulder. It burns at her touch and she retracts it. “Fuzzy sister feelings?” Regina repeats as though she can’t quite believe it. For the first time since they’d slipped away into her office, she doesn’t look quite so amused but taken aback. “I…Of course I want to kill her. It was a late evening.” 

 

“Okay. Great. And these…people out there?” 

 

“Here to help,” Regina says smoothly, sliding right back to plastic smile and a safe distance from her. “Let them do their jobs and you do yours. I’m trying to be supportive.”

 

_Supportive_ means vanishing on her halfway through dinner- which is surprisingly bland for a Regina dish, and Henry makes faces at it when Regina’s in the kitchen- and not returning until morning, and Emma shakes her head at her own hope that they might be a team again and launches another hunt for Zelena. Time will mend whatever this is between them. Regina has still sent her help, even if it isn’t something she’ll involve herself in.

 

And her new deputies are eager to patrol, quick to report to her, and Regina-recommended, so that’s something, right? 

 

On the second night out alone, she gets the call from the twins she’d assigned to the center of town. “We just spotted Zelena entering the library tower,” Am and Si announce in unison. “With a man with a bow.” 

 

“A man with a bow,” Emma repeats, validation burning through her. Of _course_. “Robin Hood?” 

 

“Don’t know, don’t care,” the twins sing out. “We found fish.”

 

“ _Good_ fish,” one of them informs her.

 

“None of that generic canned garbage,” the other agrees.

 

In the background, she hears the door blow open and Granny’s voice. “What the hell is going on in here?”

 

There’s yowling and raucous laughter and then a crossbow bolt firing and Emma cuts the line, thoughts returning to Zelena. Whatever the twins are doing, it isn’t her concern anymore. 

 

When she finds Zelena- and _Robin Hood_ , she’s known all along- this’ll all be over.

 

But she finds neither in the clock tower. Instead there’s a man she vaguely recognizes- Keith something. He’d tried to file a report against Gold last year, at the height of the Greg and Tamara situation, and she’d taken his paperwork and then thought of Neal and shoved it into a drawer- tied up against the rail with his bow hanging from his neck as he shouts vile curses at the top of his lungs. “Witch! You get back here, witch!” 

 

He rounds on her as she climbs up the staircase and his eyes light up. “Sheriff Swan! I’ve been–“

 

Her magic incinerates the rope, leaving red streaks across Keith’s wrists, and she drags him across the room to shove him into the wall. “Where is she?”

 

“I don’t know! She told me she had information for me and dragged me here and then vanished!” He balks against her hand and she tightens her grip, adding magic. “I swear, I’ve never even seen her before. I’m not like–“ He stops. 

 

“Like?”

 

He remains silent, looking frightened.

 

Her voice goes low and dangerous and she can feel irritation mingling with rage and that’s never a good sign for anyone involved. She presses forward, watching as his eyes dilate with fear and a neediness that seems very nearly like desire. “You know,” she says, slipping into bail bondsperson mode in a moment, sensual and threatening with a captive audience. (She thinks she’d unconsciously borrowed quite a bit from Regina-as-Mayor-Mills during the year she hadn’t remembered, and the thrill of power that emerges from it makes her heart pound faster with eagerness.) “I have magic, too. Same as Gold.” Her hand lights up, blue-black cobalt in the dimness of the clock tower. “I could tear out your tongue in an instant if I had to.” 

 

Keith’s eyes bug out and she notices suddenly that her magic is constricting around his throat, choking him until there’s a dark line of skin visible under the glow of the magic. She tightens it, feeling a rush of adrenaline at his terror. “Tell me.” 

 

He struggles, pushes against her until she shoves him back, and sags. “Barker,” he chokes out. “From the Rabbit Hole. Saw him drinking with the witch earlier tonight.”

 

She shoves him one more time for good measure and whirls around, stalking down the stairs back to her Bug. She glances into the window of Granny’s as she drives past and sees the silhouettes in the window of Am and Si circling Granny, who’s tied to a chair and waving a spatula at them, and texts Shenzi at the station to warn her to get them under control. 

 

_Not her problem._ Regina is right- Zelena is her only priority. She can’t get caught up in minute struggles when Granny is breaking curfew, anyway, and she can still cut this problem down at its core because of her new deputies. 

 

David expresses some concern when she returns the next evening to patrol and he’s heading back home. “There have been some complaints about…them,” he says, wrinkling his nose at Flo and Jet. They tweak tasers threateningly at him and Emma gives them a warning look. “Some concerns that Regina-appointed cronies might not have the town’s best interests in mind.” 

 

“Me-appointed,” she corrects tiredly. “Regina has just been helping me out.” Regina is barely a presence in the house anymore, uninterested in her and only Henry has been getting any attention, but there’s less conflict, too. There’s less debate about what Emma’s doing and fewer of Regina’s disappointed _this isn’t you_ faces that make her stomach drop and her heart hurt. And it feels wrong to be without Regina so often but it’s easier than being around her when they’re both so diametrically opposed. So she soldiers on, takes the polite smiles when they’re all together and the enthusiastic nods when Emma talks about her work, and she doesn’t question whatever’s happening between them.

 

Another problem to be cut down at its core when she defeats Zelena. “I thought you guys were okay with each other now. We’ve done family dinners and everything and there haven’t been any complaints.” 

 

“I know that.” David presses his lips together. “It’s just…Storybrooke is getting nervous about some of her decisions. And I’m their king.” 

 

“You’re _a_ king,” Shenzi says from the desk, lip curling. “Doesn’t mean you’re any more high and mighty than the rest of them. At least Regina doesn’t prance around the town like she popped out of a coma and decided she owned it.” 

 

David looks flummoxed at the hostility. Shenzi returns to filing her nails. They’re jagged, pointed like claws at the tips, and she snickers to herself as David tries again, “Emma, I just hope you’ll reconsider some of the staffing changes.”

 

She shakes her head. “No time, David. Sorry. I’ve got a new lead on Zelena.” 

 

She’s out the door before he is, ducking into her patrol car to ride down to the Rabbit Hole.

 

She doesn’t pause anymore, doesn’t hesitate, and every day she gets a little bit closer to Zelena because of it. They’re fighting on Zelena’s turf now and she’d been fool enough to believe otherwise for so long; but now that she knows it, her objective is clear and she doesn’t waver.

 

The Rabbit Hole is as full as always, an hour after curfew. “ _Really_?” 

 

Belligerent stares. She closes her eyes and focuses, pulling frustrated anger out from deep within her and directing it at the floor, imagining it shaking around her until it _does_ , until there are people running and tables sliding and a few groans and pained cries as the bar empties. The lights flicker and go out just as her eyes shoot open and she yanks hard on Barker’s arm as he scurries past her. “You! You stay.” 

 

His eyes glitter and she doesn’t remember who he’s supposed to be until he purrs, “Don’t you have a little boy, Sheriff?” 

 

She chokes back nausea and magic springs easily to her hands, blasting him back against a wall as she reaches into his chest and her fingers clamp around nothingness. He laughs like a snarl. “Looking for my heart? I got rid of that long ago.” 

 

“Unfortunately for you and me, you’ve still got your face.” She punches him hard, harder even than she’d struck Spencer, and then again as he grunts in agony. “Tell me what Zelena told you.” 

 

He smiles around his rapidly growing nose. “Go fuck yourself.” 

 

There’s a sudden shock of energy and Emma blinks in the dark and sees Flo dancing forward with his taser, jamming it into Barker’s side until he’s twitching and Flo is laughing, Jet on the other side of her with his own taser. “We’ve got this, boss,” Jet reassures her, and she doesn’t hesitate again. She doesn’t care what happens to him.

 

“Find out what he knows about Zelena,” she orders them, and turns on her heel and charges out of the room, in no mood to watch Barker twitch and shake. 

 

Right on cue, she gets a call from Shenzi. “Zelena out in the woods,” she announces without preamble. “Jack and Nickels stumbled right into her. She’s heading for the farmhouse.” 

 

Emma drives.

 

Sometimes now it feels as though there’s white noise running through her brain, slowing her thoughts and drowning them out before they can reach actualization, and she isn’t nearly as angry anymore as much as…cut off. She hasn’t felt connected to anyone since she’d last held onto Regina on the night that her mother had had a baby and she goes through the motions, focuses only on Zelena and whatever it takes to destroy her, and after that she can rest again. After that she’s going to be the person she was before, the one whom Henry loved and whom Regina might’ve loved and who had parents who’d cared about her even if she had never been their priority. After Zelena, she’s going to be fine.

 

And fuck it all, she’s thinking again.

 

She grits her teeth and parks her car down the road from Zelena’s house and sees the flicker of her green brooch in the doorway. Heart pounding, she fumbles for her gun and races for the house. Zelena watches.

 

“Hello, Emma Swan,” she says, sneering down at her. “What brings you to my lovely home this evening? Are you looking to beat another man to death?” 

 

Emma doesn’t answer, just holds out her hands and lets the magic spring forth, feeding rage and fear and weeks of nothing but vengeance on her mind. _Humiliation. Impotence._ She’d faced off against Cora and Pan and thought only of what she’d been capable of, not all the things she _isn’t_. She’s only ever felt weak before when up against Regina, and that had been…different. 

 

She hates feeling weak.

 

Her magic slams into Zelena and the witch laughs gleefully as translucent green magic spreads like a sheet around her, trembling as though nothing more has hit it but a light wind. “Silly, silly little pet. Nothing can stop me…except light magic.” She twirls in place, unharmed as Emma struggles to control her power, to force enough of it into Zelena’s shields to break through. “And you don’t seem to have that in abundance anymore, do you?” Zelena asks, smug before her.

 

Emma’s hands shake and the white noise gets louder, louder in her mind until she can’t hear anything but roaring static and she needs Regina and Henry. Regina and Henry make everything quiet. And instead she’s here and she’s found her objective and nothing is working, not the magic that’s supposed to have solved everything, and she doesn’t _care_ about light or dark or whatever bullshit it is that this fairytale world is peddling. That shouldn’t matter.

 

She’s trying to stop the bad guy. Doesn’t that mean anything? Has her own magic decided she’s unworthy as well? 

 

She fires her gun and charges forward while Zelena slows the bullet and dodges it, and her hands tear toward Zelena but catch only puffs of green smoke and she falls forward, landing on the doorstep and breathing hard as her magic makes blue shockwaves around her like a second earthquake. 

 

And her magic is dark and her head is aching and she finally thinks about Spencer on the floor inside and Barker today and Walsh before them and she vomits the water from her empty stomach all over Zelena's welcome mat and staggers home, forgetting her car and choking on the clear night air.

 

Regina opens the door for her before she manages to unlatch it and she’s never wanted more to hold her, to be held and reassured and to find quiet again. Instead she gets critical eyes running over her, impersonal and carefully unreadable, and she says, “I’m going to head upstairs for a shower.”

 

Regina turns back toward the study and Emma’s hands crave for her, for Regina who _cares_ and craves her in the same way (everywhere, she’d said, as though she couldn’t believe how deep her want for Emma had gone, and Emma couldn’t believe it either), Regina who anchors her.

 

_You were right. I don’t know who I am anymore_ , she thinks once she’s in the shower and there’s water sliding down her face and her shoulders and her arms and some of it tastes like salt. She curls her fingers around one wrist and lets magic seep out of her palms, falling around her like raindrops until it’s gathering in puddles on the floor around her. And it feels like power sometimes, light and easy and simple, but tonight it’s heavy like another burden. 

 

There’s so much magic within her and she suddenly wants it _gone_ , wants to feel clean and empty again like she’d felt in New York, free of magic and fairytales and shadows she can’t fight. She fires magic from her hands at the ceiling, at the walls, at the shower doors until they crack under the pressure and there’s blue rain pouring down around her, droplets that streak blue across her skin like azure blood.

 

She hears nothing but the pounding of water and her head hurting more and more as magic water turns to magic and vanishes down the drain, and she still doesn’t feel empty of it. She still doesn’t feel clean, and she grabs a loofah and scrapes against her skin until it’s red and blotchy and raw. Magic washes over her sides and arms and stomach and heals the skin as quickly as it had opened and she wants to slam her hands against the shower walls and rail at the unfairness of it, that magic won’t even let her hurt without interfering.

 

This magic was supposed to be a gift. It was supposed to make her strong and supposed to save everyone- _she’s the savior, she saves them all_ \- but instead she’s too weak to defeat Zelena, too weak to be what her parents want her to be, too weak even to keep Henry and Regina anymore. It’s too much magic, more than anyone should have, and she’s been shuddering under its burden since the moment she’d tried to embrace it.

 

It’s _magic_ that’s at fault for how dissociated she is now, for who she’s becoming and what makes her weak. This magic is her curse, and she’s bathing within it- literally, now- bogged down by too much power that should never have been hers. 

 

She lets it fall, fall, fall, down to the floor like acid water pattering against her water-slicked skin.

 

* * *

 

**xxii. dubitation**

Henry had thought that school would be the daunting part of his week, back when Mom and Ma had agreed that Zelena wasn’t after him anymore and it’d be safe for him to start here. But Adi had been in his class and everyone else- after firing questions at him about New York and the outside world until they’d run out of steam- had accepted his presence as though he’d always been there. Which he guesses he _was_ , even if he can’t remember it.

 

Then there had been the baby and the night he’d slept in the hospital, and it isn’t school that leaves him unsettled at all anymore. It’s sitting at the dining room table with Mom and Ma and watching how… _different_ they are now. 

 

Something has changed, and he doesn’t like it.

 

“How was your day today, Henry?” Mom asks, passing him the spaghetti. She’d burnt it and tried to disguise that fact with too much olive oil and parmesan cheese, and he nibbles at it for a moment, the lesser of two evils. Looking up means watching cool eyes- inquisitive around him, but still cool when there had been a time when he’d been able to look up at Mom and see love shining from her like sunbeams in winter- and pretending that none of this is affecting him.

 

“It was good,” he says, twirling his spaghetti in a circle and peeking over to Ma. Ma is watching Mom blankly, lost in another world, and when he tries to catch her eyes they slide over his face instead and return back to Mom. “There was a pop quiz in math today and I didn’t suck at it.”

 

No chastisement for that, no further questions, nothing but another polite smile. “That’s nice.” 

 

He wonders if, if he’d slam his fists down on the table now and demand explanations, he’d startle them both enough into telling him what had gone wrong. Why this week has been so tense and unhappy for everyone in their home. Why Ma is sleeping in the guest room and Mom doesn’t even hug him anymore.

 

It’s been precious little time that he’s known Mom and yet already the things that _aren’t_ anymore hurt as though solid ground had been pulled out from under him. The way she’d smile at him like he’d been her world and the way that she’d been so interested in everything he’d been excited about and even the way she’d touch him, tentative fingers against his palm as though she couldn’t believe that he’s really here. 

 

She’d been _Mom_ , suddenly and incontrovertibly, and he’d been grappling with her past but now he can’t seem to remember why he’d cared. He knows who she was, but all that seems to pale in comparison with who she's become. 

 

Not a villain. His mom.

 

But just as rapidly as he's found her, she's lost again, and Ma now with her. Ma is a ghost these days, in and out of the house with little more than a hurried goodbye when she goes, and Henry knows that she’s hunting Zelena but it can’t be this bad, can it? They’d almost been a family and now they’re just strangers sitting around at the dinner table, lost in their own worlds. 

 

As if on cue, Ma straightens. “I’d better head out now. It’s just about eight, and–“

 

There’s a knock at the door.

 

“I’ll get it,” Henry says hastily, fleeing the table. Mom and Ma’s eyes follow him, and when he turns back they’re both watching him from the doorway, Mom with brow faintly furrowed and Ma with a pained look on her face. 

 

It’s Mary Margaret, baby in her arms, and her face lights up when she sees him. “Henry! How’s school going?” 

 

Everything about her is familiar when his mothers are alien, and he finally remembers how to grin. “It’s pretty cool. I like it here. Lots of homework, but it’s no biggie.” 

 

“That’s good to hear.” She beams at him. “We’re naming the baby this Saturday in a ceremony at Granny’s, so make sure you get a head start on your work.” She pats his shoulder and it’s different than Mom’s uncertain touch and Ma’s casual clap, but it’s nice anyway. He’s been trying to be mad at Mary Margaret on Ma’s behalf but she’s the only who’s acting like there isn’t some secret chip on her shoulder, and he folds easily.

 

Except then her face is clearing up, frown lines are settling onto her skin like she can’t hide them anymore, and she steps ahead of him into the dining room. “Emma? Regina? Could I speak to you two privately?” 

 

He hangs back and wanders into the living room, picks up a comic book casually and waits until they’ve all filed into the study before he sinks down to the floor beside the open door and listens. 

 

“David says that he’s been passing you the recent complaints, right?” Mary Margaret is asking.

 

“Uh. Yeah. I guess. I’ve skimmed them,” Ma says unconvincingly.

 

“Good.” Mary Margaret sounds uneasy. “So you know why there have been some calls for…a change in leadership.” 

 

“A change in leadership.” Mom’s voice gets low and dangerous, like a growl. “On whose jurisdiction?”

 

“Well, mine, I guess.” Henry peeks into the room and sees Mary Margaret wringing her hands nervously as she sits back on the study couch, baby cradled in one arm. “I wouldn’t have taken it seriously if it hadn’t been some of our people who are supporting it. Even Archie has come to me to talk about it. And maybe it’s time to consider…a break?” Her eyes flicker to Mom, expectant, and she looks bewildered when Mom just stares.

 

Ma speaks, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you’re still pushing this. Storybrooke is just looking to blame someone. Regina has done _nothing_ wrong.” She takes a step closer to Mom, protective, and Mom steps back gracefully. 

 

“She hasn’t,” Mary Margaret agrees, somber, and they both shift to blink at her. She rubs her eyes, apologetic and exasperated. “Emma, those complaints haven’t been about Regina. They’ve been about you.” 

 

Ma freezes. Mom cocks her head interestedly. “What are they saying that she’s done?” 

 

“I don’t know. There were a whole bunch of…” Mary Margaret rubs her eyes again. “People are saying that you nearly demolished the Rabbit Hole? There have been three separate charges of police brutality directed toward you alone, and a dozen at your deputies from the past few days alone. Storybrooke is very concerned.” Her voice lowers. “Emma, did you really blow up Archie’s car? Did you know about Granny breaking her hip chasing two of your deputies? None of this makes sense.” 

 

Ma avoids the second half of the question altogether. “Zelena was _in_ Archie’s car. I was trying to stop her with my magic. Things got out of hand.” 

 

“Zelena made you do it,” Mary Margaret seizes the thread and Ma looks relieved. “Zelena’s been maneuvering you into these positions. I know how manipulative she can be.” She clutches the baby tighter and Henry’s eyes flicker over to Mom, who’s watching her with amused disdain. It isn’t the first time he’s seen her look like that around Mary Margaret, but it’s unsettling now, not tinged with the affection he’s accustomed to.

 

“That’s right,” Mom says, folding her arms in front of her. “This is Zelena causing unrest, not Emma. And I won’t allow anyone to unseat her.” Ma blinks up at her like she’s her savior and Henry feels sick about it for reasons he doesn’t know how to express. Because 

 

“Of…of course not.” Mary Margaret is frowning now, left off-kilter by Mom’s sudden aggressiveness. “I didn’t come here to actually _do_ that. I just wanted to warn you about it.” 

 

“Good. You can leave now. Take your son home. Try to disappoint him a bit less than you have your other child.” Mom smiles tightly and Mary Margaret and Ma both gasp out  _“Regina_!” as she steps between them.

 

Mary Margaret looks taken aback _._ “Regina, I thought you’d want to know this after…” Mom purses her lips, no recognition in her eyes. “Of course I wouldn’t try to take Emma’s job from her! I was worried–“ 

 

Ma is silent again, thumbs hooked into her jeans and head dipped down so all Henry can see is blonde hair and trails of blue magic burning eight tiny holes into the front of her pants. “You should get home,” she says. “It’s nearly curfew.” 

 

Mary Margaret looks befuddled at the whole turn of events and it takes her another moment before she backs off, hands up. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the naming?” she says, and she doesn’t wait for an answer before she’s vanishing from the room and the house, not noticing Henry on the floor in her haste to leave. 

 

He peers back in and sees Ma looking up at Mom, fire back in her eyes for one moment, and then she’s darting forward and wrapping her arms around her and Mom lets out a muffled “mmph!” of protest but grudgingly puts her hands on Ma’s back. “Thanks,” Ma murmurs.

 

There’s a sudden  _flicker_ , an instant where Mom is weird and distorted and Henry gapes and sees only a flash of green light before Mom pulls away swiftly and nothing has changed but her smile, even more strained than before. “We can’t have you losing your lead on Zelena, can we?” she says.

 

Ma straightens, and it’s the first time in days that she’s seemed like _Ma,_ engaged and fierce and dangerous instead of tired and defeated. “Tonight,” she says like a promise.

 

“I don’t doubt it.” And Henry squints at Mom’s face as she says the words, the twitch of her lips and the cadence of her voice. He swallows hard when her eyes light onto him and scurries off.

 

+

 

They clean up dinner in silence, Mom scrubbing at the pot she’d burnt and Henry loading the dishes onto the drying rack and trying not to flinch when their hands bump into each other. “Is everything all right?” Mom asks him after he nearly cracks a dish dodging her elbow. 

 

“It’s fine.” He rubs his towel against a bowl. “I’m…uh…I’m just worried about Ma, I guess. Because of Zelena and all.”  

 

“Yes, Zelena.” Mom heaves a sigh. “I’m sure Emma will do just fine against her. If she even finds her tonight.” Her eyes flicker to him. “You’ve adjusted well to having two mothers, haven’t you?” 

 

He chews on his lip, heart racing, and he doesn’t know Mom's agenda right now but he says anyway, “I guess so. I think I missed you even when you weren’t here.” He can feel that hole burning within him again now, the lack of _it-_ whatever it is-stronger than ever.

 

“I did love you very much?” It emerges a question instead of a reassurance and Mom doesn’t notice, her eyes fixed on him with that curiosity again.

 

“Yeah. You were…before you loved me, you were the Evil Queen. And then you changed. For me. For our _family_.” He emphasizes the word and he doesn’t know if he’s getting through to her but Mom’s eyes get kind of glassy and she scrubs harder at the pot. “Family is really important to you.” 

 

“Your mother is out trying to kill my sister.” 

 

“Your sister tried to kill her son,” he counters, and they’re staring at each other, on edge and scanning the other’s eyes for the suspicions they won’t admit to. “Family is really important to Ma, too.” 

 

“Hm. Perhaps,” Mom allows, studying his face. He keeps it innocent, blank and bland until she says, “You should get a head start on your schoolwork, shouldn’t you?” 

 

“Yep. Homework.” He bobs his head and climbs up the stairs, then ducks into Mom's room instead of his own to climb out onto the porch and slide down to the ground, landing hard in a crouch on the grassy yard and jogging off toward a familiar route.

 

The others are all milling around near the park, ducked under the jungle gym and buried within the trees, keeping a watchful eye out for stray flying monkeys. Not that there have been very many at all for the past few days. Some of the older boys have been sitting on roofs and monitoring the skies- _The sheriff is wrong, there’s nothing to be afraid of_ \- and today they’ve finally all agreed that it’s safe enough to venture out again.

 

“Careful,” Adi whispers from somewhere just above him. “Your mother is out patrolling right down by the water.” He points in its direction and then presses a finger to his lips.

 

“If she finds out we’re breaking curfew, we’re toast. I heard she locked up Ashley Boyd and put her kid in the hospital,” one of the girls says. 

 

“I heard that she beat up Granny. And Ruby had to turn into the wolf to save her!” another says, dangling her legs down under a branch. 

 

“Guys, shut up.” Ava scowls at them. “She’s Henry’s mom. And none of that is true, anyway. My dad says that Ashley got turned into a monkey.”

 

“Everyone’s turning into monkeys,” Nick says darkly, glancing up through the holes in the jungle gym to the night sky. “Last year was even worse.” 

 

“Yeah, so?” Ava stands up, and Henry sees the takeout bags beside her. “We get turned into monkeys, at least we have _fun_ doing it. No more being locked up in our houses.” There’s a murmur of assent and the rest of the kids drop from the trees to join her, pulling out burgers and fries and sodas from the bags.

 

That’s all this is- tiny rebellion from kids who remember freedom, remember being afraid of Zelena for so long that they’re impatient and ready to thumb their noses at her instead. And Henry feels the glow of belonging _somewhere_ , at least, when Ma is busy all the time and Mom…

 

He isn’t quite sure what Mom is right now, or how he can rescue her, or if she even wants to be rescued. “Hey, guys. What’s it like when someone has your heart?” 

 

Adi swallows a mouthful. “I don’t know. I think you can’t love right. Or you have to do whatever people tell you to. Pan took your heart, but you were just…dead then, mostly.” 

 

“Helpful.” 

 

“You think the queen took someone’s heart?” Nick looks suddenly terrified, and Henry feels a wave of irritation on his mother’s behalf.

 

“No. Of course she didn’t take anyone’s–“ His mouth snaps closed. “Hear that?” There are murmurs through the trees, the sounds of movements and low laughter. “Someone’s here.” 

 

He’s already creeping down the path when Ava catches up to him. “Careful,” she hisses. “If it’s Emma…”

 

“It’s not Ma.” He sees the flash of a green gem reflected off the moonlight, shining through the trees, and then a low accented voice. “Look.” 

 

“That’s–“ 

 

“Yeah.” There’s a shimmer of smoke and the person who might’ve been Zelena vanishes, leaving behind two older teens who Henry recognizes at once. “Flotsam and Jetsam. Ma’s deputies.” Working with Zelena. It’s not exactly a surprise, not when he’s heard about some of the stuff they’ve done, but he thinks about Mary Margaret talking about a _change in leadership_ and Ma’s head bowed in front of her mother and he feels as sick as he had when Mom and Ma had hugged earlier.

 

“Not just them.” Ava shakes her head, eyes widening as she points. “Archie.” 

 

“Archie?” _Even Archie has come to me to talk about it._ But Archie isn’t involved in some nefarious scheme. He’s bound and gagged, half conscious as Flo drags him along and Jet tazes him every time he struggles. “We have to help him.” 

 

“Don’t be an idiot, we’re out after curfew! You think those two are going to cut us any slack if they’re working with Zelena?” Ava smacks him upside the head. It stings like she knows what she’s doing. “We shouldn’t even be following them.” 

 

They do anyway, deep into the woods until the road is a tiny ribbon to their right and the town line is just up ahead. And Henry suddenly knows exactly what’s about to happen, had heard about it from David that night in the hospital, and he’s charging forward while Ava hangs onto him, hand on his mouth while he struggles. “Stop it! It isn’t worth it! It isn’t–“ 

 

Flo pushes Archie over the line and a monkey shrieks just above them and Henry runs and runs and runs, hanging onto Ava’s hand as she matches his pace, back to the playground and back through the woods and down a street until he crashes straight into Ma’s arms.

 

“Henry!” She pushes him away an instant later, hands tight on his shoulders until they’re pinching painfully. “What are you doing out here? Why are you–“ Her eyes flicker to Ava. “Are you on a _date_?” She drops her hands, taking a step back. “You broke curfew and you’re…you’re _dating_?” She looks like she doesn’t know which she’s supposed to be more outraged about.

 

She glowers at Ava. Ava glowers right back. “Her. Of course her. You’re a mini Regina and she’s…” She shakes her head. “What is going on here?” 

 

“It isn’t a date,” Henry says, and his face is  _not_ flushed over the idea of it. Just from the run in the cold.

 

He’s relieved to see a matching tinge on Ava’s face, but she says stubbornly, “Yes, it is. That’s all we were doing.” 

 

But when it comes down to it, he trusts Ma. Maybe not to tell him the truth. Maybe not to give him the whole story. But he knows that she despises injustice just as much as he does and he knows that she’s the one who can save everyone, and he says, “We were following Flo and Jet into the woods. They had Dr. Hopper with them and they dragged him over the town line.” He leaves out Zelena speaking to them, suddenly unsure if he’d seen that at all. 

 

Ma twitches with surprise and then takes a deep breath. “Why were you near the woods to follow them?” she demands

 

_That’s_ what she’s harping on? “They turned him into a monkey, Ma!”

 

He thinks again of Mary Margaret barging in to tell them about Archie’s concerns. “I think they did it because…” He stumbles over the words and looks down. “I think that’s how they’re stopping people who complain.” 

 

When he glances back up at Ma, his heart sinks as she shakes her head at him. “Oh, Henry, no. They’re not…They may not be the best deputies I’ve ever had, but you must have misunderstood.”

 

“Misunderstood them dragging him over the town line? They’re working for Zelena!” he says, and Ma goes shifty-eyed like she doesn’t know how to respond to that. “Ma!”

 

“Regina picked them for me. _Regina_. It’s okay.” Ma smiles at him, dressed up like the confident sheriff but eyes like that time he’d found her baby blanket and she’d whispered stories to him about a thousand times she hadn’t belonged. And he _knows_ , he’s been aching with the same lack of belonging for so long that this town- that _Mom_ \- has become everything to him, and it hurts every day that it all feels wrong.

 

But Ma doesn’t want to know that it’s wrong when she finally has something to hold onto. Ma isn’t going to believe him. “Don’t you think Mom’s been…strange lately?” he ventures anyway. Ava looks at him with compassion. “Different?”

 

Denial writes passages across Ma’s face, justification and fear and… _Oh._ He sees what he’d known had always been there, clearer than ever before. _Love_. So much love that it’s agony and Ma shakes her head and Henry sees it so sharply because he knows it too. Because life without Mom isn’t really life at all. Because Mom loves and they love and what are they without love? What had they been without her?

 

Henry doesn’t know how not to search for that answer. Ma lives in fear of discovering it again. “No,” she says, voice firm and hands stiff and long at her sides. “No, I don’t think that.” 

 

Henry nods. Ma herds Ava and him into her car, voice low and angry as she starts on them again for being outside at all, and Henry stares out the window as his mind works furiously.

 

He’s on his own. Ma is in love, and he’s on his own.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I borrowed a few lines from 3.20: Kansas in this one! There's some magical violence near the end of this, nothing too extreme but vaguely graphic. Also: plot. Lots and lots of plot. We're probably down to only 3-4 more chapters now, but I'll keep you posted on that.
> 
> Emma's section of this chapter is split into two, one before Henry's and one after.

**xxiii.i. damnation**

It’s hours before curfew but the town is still on edge, gathered around in Granny’s diner and murmuring in hushed tones as they look to the sky. Regina had warded the place against Zelena earlier that day and now she sits back, looking bored, as Emma conferences quietly with Shenzi in the doorway.

 

“Any sign of movement and you come and get me, okay? We can’t play it safe with this many people in one place. I don’t want Zelena or Gold anywhere near this…celebration.” She’s going to protect her family, she knows that with fierce determination. And yeah, she doesn’t know _how._ She glances across the room, where the Blue Fairy is probably raining blessings down on the baby to a beaming Mary Margaret. Is fairy dust light magic?

 

Am and Si snigger together, and Emma frowns down at them, already on edge. “I mean it. Get me. Don’t…don’t do anything without me.” Henry may have been imagining things the other day but she isn’t totally oblivious to her deputies’ methods. Less than ideal for peaceful times. Absolutely necessary when they’re a town under siege.

 

But Granny had refused to allow any of them inside today- had even balked when Emma had tried to enter, but Red had shot a nervous look at Snow and nudged her into staggering aside- and maybe it’s time for damage control. 

 

Emma weaves through the crowd and tries to ignore the murmurs that follow her to her seat with Regina. “They’re talking about you, love,” Regina murmurs, her whole body stiff and arched and only her neck angled downward so she can watch the rest of the room. She looks like a feline about to leap, crouched dangerously in the grass before she turns the room to blood. 

 

Emma chooses to believe that it’s out of solidarity. Regina gets just as many dirty looks, though hers are nothing new. She doesn’t know how Regina has borne them until now, that uncanny sensation of _unwanted_ that accompanies her everywhere.

 

Well…she’s tried to wipe out everyone in the town and cursed them to Maine in the first place. Which is one way of coping.

 

But she’d come a long way since then. Emma remembers for a moment the day after she’d crawled out of that well- remembers an awkward phone call and overly polite conversation and the invitation to a welcome back party that she’d begun as  _“So, Henry would like to see you tomorrow if you’d come?”_ even though Henry hadn’t even mentioned his mother in the excitement of the party and she’d been pretty much all Emma had thought of since that smile and _Welcome back_ and the whispered admissions about his mother Henry had made in the dark of their shared bedroom the night before. 

 

_“I don’t even think she wants to be bad anymore, Emma_. _She saved you today. And she says she loves me.”_

 

And then had come the party and a dozen dirty looks every time Regina had shifted, but Henry had been comfortable beside her and Regina hadn’t looked like the evil queen everyone else had known her as, just a mother caught up in her son with a smile that’s never looked more natural on her face. Emma had peeked at her through the night and thought of a dozen conversation starters and had vacillated- _Worst enemy? Co-mom? Necessary evil?_ \- until Regina had already slipped out the door.

 

That’s how Regina had coped. She’d gone about her daily routine and avoided contact with the rest of the town unless Henry had demanded it and _that_ is seeming more and more tempting to Emma today. They’re back at Granny’s for another party devoted to Mary Margaret and they’re still the enemies, but Regina bears it with snark and grace–

 

One of Henry’s friends is staring at Regina and she snaps her jaw and her eyes bulge out. He stumbles backward and makes a mad dash for the buffet.

 

Maybe not _grace_. 

 

Emma can feel stares prickling at the back of her neck and she pastes a smile on her face and leans back against their booth. “So, the station’s all set.” Regina blinks at her, nods mechanically. “What do you think they’ll name the baby?” she tries.

 

“Are we really supposed to care?” Regina drawls, toying with her collar. “Some cumbersome princely name, I’m sure. Your mother was thinking of _Leopold_ when we last spoke.” She doesn’t seem very bothered by the possibility anymore. When she'd first discussed it, back when Zelena had been her midwife and Mary Margaret had been overcome with baby fever, Regina had heard the name and stomped out of the loft.

 

Emma had followed, all too glad to have a reason to escape that conversation. “Lancelot? He was the knight who’d married them. Cora impersonated him back in the Enchanted Forest just after the curse.”

 

“Did she?” Regina looks intrigued for the first time that day. “And then what?” 

 

“Mary Margaret figured it out eventually. She was heartbroken.” 

 

“Yes, yes,” Regina says impatiently. “But what about my mother? What did she do? Why didn’t she kill you? By all accounts, she was certainly powerful enough to do so.” Her teeth worry against her bottom lip, neck straight again and eyes on Emma with new intensity and rising hostility. “How could you have stopped her?” 

 

Emma’s taken aback by the demands. “She tried to take Mary Margaret’s heart later, but I stood between them and there was this…magic…thing?” _Light magic_ , her mind taunts her, recalling the white surge of power that had blown Cora away. Arbitrary and worthless and the only thing that might’ve helped them defeat Zelena. “I don’t really know.” 

 

“And that’s when you killed her.” 

 

“What?” She stares at Regina, befuddled. “You didn’t get into the cider to get through this party, did you?” Come to think of it, Regina _is_ a little more on edge today than usual. Or maybe that’s just been all week, since they’d…broken up…or whatever this is. “I had nothing to do with that. That was all Mary Margaret.” 

 

She hadn’t even known until after the fact, and she’d been horrified and uncomfortable and struck with the most unwanted urges. Because, _really_? Driving over to Regina’s with some nice wine and trying to talk out their feelings?

 

It’s possible these feelings for Regina might’ve been present before Pan’s curse, now that she thinks about it. She may have overcompensated on the repression by shoving Regina even further away from them after that. “I wouldn’t have…” 

 

But Regina is already turning away from her, hand clenched against her collar. “Mary Margaret,” she repeats softly, and when her teeth finally disengage from her lips, there’s a streak of blood against the front of them.

 

Maybe she’d just been making an observation, because David is standing and tinkling a spoon against a glass and Mary Margaret is gesturing for Emma to join her. Henry has already slid into place beside her, tickling under his new baby uncle’s chin.

 

“I should…”

 

“You should,” Regina agrees, eyes fixed on Mary Margaret.

 

Emma sits opposite Mary Margaret, smile affixed to her face again. She hasn’t held the baby yet and Mary Margaret hasn’t offered but she sneaks a glance at him as David begins to speak about the coronation to a silenced crowd. 

 

He’s tiny, too tiny for this much turmoil, and she pushes aside all the silent resentments she can’t voice when she looks at him. Whoever her parents are, whatever she won’t communicate with them, her brother exists outside of it. He’s innocent, he’ll grow up with doting parents and a sister who loves him, and she won’t allow herself to feel anything other than affection for this tiny little creature. 

 

Henry’s foot links with hers under the table, and he grins at her as David goes on. “...And we hope you can share in it as we name him for a hero. Someone who saved every one of us. We loved him and he loved back.” Her brow furrows. _They aren’t naming their kid Henry, too, are they?_

 

Mary Margaret says, "People of Storybrooke, it’s our great joy to introduce you to our our son, Prince Neal.” 

 

There’s a bout of hysterical laughter coming from somewhere nearby, wild and disbelieving and too loud, and Emma’s rooted in her seat, unable to look around for the source of it like everyone else is, and Regina is laughing silently and Henry is kicking her hard and she suddenly realizes that it’s her. She’s the one who sounds like she’s about to break in the middle of a crowd of people, all staring at her with distrust and disapproval.

 

She stumbles to her feet, shoves past David, and races for the door.

 

Belle catches her arm. “Emma, is everything–“ Emma shoves her hard enough that she crashes into Mulan beside her and pushes out the door, and she skips the steps altogether, vanishes and reappears on the ground in front of them.

 

_Neal_. They'd named her brother _Neal_.

 

She imagines for a moment–  _“Be right over, Regina, I’m just changing Neal’s diaper!”–_ and there’s that hysterical screeching again, coming out in gasps like sobs exploding into the silence of the night and she leans down, palms against one of the outdoor tables, and laughs helplessly until tears come. 

 

“Emma.” She hasn’t heard Mary Margaret’s voice like this since…since she’d been _Mary Margaret_ , low and furious the day Emma had tried to grab Henry and run from town. _What the hell is wrong with you._

 

Then, she’d been sulky and penitent. Today she doesn’t care. “Neal?” she demands, spinning around. “ _Neal_? Why would you even… _Prince Neal_?” She hadn’t taken stock of her feelings there, had shoved them away and buried herself in action and family and avoidance, and now there they are, front and center, bound up in the baby Mary Margaret still holds in her arms.

 

Mary Margaret stands her ground, raising her chin and clutching the baby closer. “We were trying to respect him. He sacrificed his life for you and this town–“ 

 

“He _left me in prison_!” She’s breathing hard. “He left me behind and all you do is celebrate him and I…I…” Her heart is beating wildly in her chest and her magic is sparking lightning against lawn chairs and all she can think of is the utter devastation of having thrown all her life’s dreams at one person and being horrifically betrayed for it. Seventeen seems so tiny when she remembers it, too young to have lost so much faith when she hadn’t had any to begin with.

 

And he’d never come back for her until she’d bumped into him in Manhattan and he’d first seen her son. He’d cast her aside rather than to return to this world and sometimes she understands it completely. Today she would do the same. Her seventeen-year-old self still vows forever bitterness.

 

Mary Margaret’s eyes flicker down to Emma’s hands, but she raises them again with effort, sympathy washing away the hostility. “You loved him. It’s okay to have loved him.” She gives her a patented-Snow-White smile, tearful and compassionate and forgiving.

 

And Emma’s magic burns brighter. “So you told me. Over and over again.” The filter she’s had over her thoughts is gone, stripped away as swiftly as the words _our son, Prince Neal,_ and she clenches her fists so the blue bursts like fireworks that flash feet away from Mary Margaret. “Thank you so much for that.” It’s caustic and angry. “Thank you so much for letting me know it was okay to _love_ when all I needed to know was…” Mary Margaret stares at her and she remembers Neal, Neal who wouldn’t come after her because he was afraid, Neal who made her  _hurt_ every time he’d been around and she’d loved him because she had no other choice.

 

In one instant, she’d mourned him and she’d been able to breathe for the first time since she’d seen him again in Manhattan. She laughs and shakes her head and Mary Margaret takes an alarmed step backward. “You don’t understand. You love…everyone, probably. You don’t know what it means to need to _hate_.” 

 

Just for a little while. She’d needed it so desperately, to have the freedom to hold that grudge, to be anything but selfless and giving to the man who is- quite likely- the main reason she hadn’t seen Henry until he’d been ten years old and standing outside her apartment door. She’d wanted to be angry and betrayed and instead she’d been hit with a barrage of promises, of responsibilities, of insistence on _true love,_ and she’d never had time to resolve any of her emotions around Neal to grow into that love again.She’d wanted him _dead_ by the end of that wreck because it’d been easier than coping with the emotions she’d been allowed to work with.

 

But there’s no space in Snow White’s life for ugly emotions, for resentment, for working through anger in any way but compassion and giving.

 

Mary Margaret blinks at her, uncomprehending. “He’s gone now. And you loved him, too. What good is there in hating?” Emma clutches her fingers tight to her palms and the magic stops sparking, just surrounds her fists in a glow like a star about to go supernova. “Come back inside, Emma. This is a celebration. For us. For our family. It won’t be the same without you.” She’s smiling like she means it, like she can gloss over all the badness and…

 

“And what? You want me to celebrate _Neal_ in there?” She waves her hands at Granny’s and a little blue fire nicks the corner of the roof. “You want me to go back inside and pretend this is what I wanted?” She drops her hands with a whoosh and pop of energy. “Of course you do. Because that’s what we do, you and David and me. We follow the scripts you write for us and we do it with a fucking smile.” 

 

There are tears in Mary Margaret’s eyes and Emma is savagely glad about it and hates herself for it at the same time. “Emma, this isn’t you. We can…we can call him Baelfire, if that’s–“ She clutches the baby tighter. “I don’t know what I’ve done to make you so upset!” 

 

“Nothing. Nothing.” She deflates at the agitation in Mary Margaret’s tone and turns around, pressing her hands together and imagining the magic sinking back into the dark pit in her belly. “It’s fine.” 

 

“It isn’t!” She turns again, Mary Margaret’s voice urgent behind her. “Emma, I’m your mother!”

 

She can feel her throat close and refuse to open, her eyes stinging as she tries to talk. “You used to be my friend.” And this is another delusion, where she’s seeing people as they are and refusing to acknowledge it. “Mary Margaret Blanchard was my friend and she’s dead and instead I have–“ 

 

Snow White, staring at her in horror, mouth half open as she shakes her head. Snow White who tells her _We go back together_ and _It’s my job to change that_ and talks about their family up until there are beanstalks rising and a new way to the home she wants or until it’s Emma or some magical Neverland future with…

 

…with _Baby Neal._

 

Snow White who put her in a wardrobe three decades ago and she hasn’t been allowed to hate her for it, either, and she raises her hands to the sky in frustration and hurls the magic back out into the darkness until there are angry blue lines slashing through the night sky, pouring out like macabre fireworks over the brightly lit diner and Snow White with her baby gaping up at them.

 

“What’s happened to you?” Snow whispers, and the baby begins to cry. It sounds like Henry in the hospital- the first time, what could have been the only time- and Emma can’t stay here anymore. She takes a step forward and Snow says, voice growing in strength, “Fine. Fine, you want me to be Mary Margaret? You want me to stop _pretending_?” 

 

Emma is silent, rage and dread roiling and rising like bile in her throat. Snow takes a step forward. “You were going to run away. _Again_. You set up shop here, you act like you’ll stay…and then you check out on us.” Her lip is quivering but her voice is like iron, and for the first time Emma actually believes that this Snow would have been capable of being a match against Regina. “How am I supposed to hold onto you like this? You run and you don’t…you embrace this _darkness_ …” She gestures at Emma’s hands, still aflame. “And that’s just running again. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? I warned you in Neverland–“ 

 

She breathes in shakily. “I love you, Emma, but I don’t know how to deal with you like this. I won’t lose myself when hope and love are all I’ve ever had to offer. For you! For all of us!” 

 

And that’s where they part in bleak abandon. Because Snow refuses to see beyond hope, beyond her stubborn view of a good world, and when Emma doesn’t fit into that, she doesn’t know how to step past it. And Emma’s spent so long struggling to reach Snow, to be enough for Snow, to be the savior and the daughter that Snow’s always wanted, and this is their dynamic. Emma walking forward, Snow remaining immobile. 

 

Emma walks forward again. 

 

She concentrates hard until her magic fades again and she’s standing just in front of her mother, only the baby between them. “Sorry, Mom _._ Maybe that’ll be enough for Neal.” 

 

Snow’s mouth falls open and Emma’s feet move backward, backing away until she’s at the opening to the sidewalk and she can turn and return to Regina’s house, monkeys screeching above her head as she shakes with sobs she’s afraid to release to the world.

 

* * *

**xxiv. oxygenation**

 

_All set?_

 

Henry sneaks a second peek at his phone, almost expecting a response to his message already, then looks up with a winning grin that would normally fool no one at the dinner table. But Mom is tapping her fingers against the table, bored and distracted- brooding, even, and that worries Henry quite a bit- and Ma hasn’t moved much from a slump since the disaster at the naming yesterday. 

 

Which really _is_ a giant disaster, but Henry’s got other problems right now. Problems that will hopefully solve everyone else’s if all goes well. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he announces. Ma grunts an approval.

 

He scampers toward the bathroom and then doubles back, climbing up the stairs as silently as he can just as his phone buzzes. _She’s on her way. So are we._

 

Operation Chameleon is a go. One anonymous tip and their diversion is all set up, and Henry feels a little guilty about using Mary Margaret like this when she and Ma are clearly having issues already, but the mission has to come first. Everything else can be fixed once Mom is… _Mom_ again.

 

And anyway, someone should know about what happened with Archie. Someone who’ll _do_ something about it. Ma has been reticent at best when he’s brought it up, has changed the subject and remembered patrol plans out of nowhere when he confronts her. Ma is caught up in the status quo, and the rumors still abound about her.

 

He grits his teeth and slips into his bedroom, pushing his doubts aside. He’s going to figure what’s happened to Mom and he’s going to prove it to Ma, to save them both from all of this. It’s up to him.

 

He’s already climbing out his window when there’s a _thunk_ beside him and Adi and Ava and Nick are grinning up at him from the bottom of the ladder. “Quiet!” he hisses. “Mary Margaret isn’t here yet!” He can see the lights of a car down the road, though, and the four of them hurry around the side of the house, dragging the ladder along. 

 

“Tell me you brought the fairy dust.” Nick had brought up the idea of magical force fields around the windows, and they’d sent out their best thief to find a workaround.

 

Adi dangles the vial in his hand. “Fairy dust. That Nova really needs to learn to be more careful with her wares.” He snickers. “Especially around Lost Boys."

 

Ava snatches it from him. “Henry, you’re first. I’m next. Nick, you keep watch.” 

 

“I always keep watch,” Nick complains, and Adi and Ava give him dual stink eyes. He huffs in silence. Henry clambers up the ladder as the doorbell rings, then the door creaks open.

 

He’d turned the heat in the house all the way up the night before, and he’s pleased to see that Mom had taken the bait. Her windows are open- no fairy dust needed after all- and the screens are easy to pry off. He isn’t sure how he’ll reattach them, but he’ll probably be in much deeper trouble than just that if Mom finds out what he’s up to before they’re done. 

 

But they make it inside as the sound of angry voices are rising downstairs. Mom’s room looks the same as it had been before she’d changed. Neat, not spotless, though it’s Mom’s stuff that’s lying on the floor instead of Ma’s. And the old school projects she’d shown him from her dresser- reminders that he’d been her son once, even if he can’t remember- have been swept to the side and replaced with what looks like a magic chemistry set. He swallows, his belief cemented yet again that this isn’t Mom.

 

They take apart her closet and under her bed and peer through her drawers, flipping through files and pushing aside blouses and mounds of shoes until Ava says suddenly, “Oh, wow.”

 

Henry squints at her. “Are you looking through my mom’s _underwear_?” 

 

“No, you idiot. Look.” She points into the drawer again, slipping her hand past some dark lingerie that Henry had _never_ needed to see, thank you very much. “Adi, get over here.” 

 

“I’m not going through the mayor’s underwear, either,” Adi says, wrinkling his nose.

 

Ava sighs heavily, reaches in, and Henry’s already wincing when her hand emerges with a familiar silver dagger in it. “Are you two done being children now?”

 

“Yes,” Henry says, staring open-mouthed. “Yes, we are.” 

 

The Dark One’s dagger. From what he’s gleaned of it, it’s the only thing that keeps Rumplestiltskin under Zelena’s control. Ma had almost stabbed him with it once, and that would have made _her_ the Dark One. Rumplestiltskin had apologized for trying to hurt him but had had no choice when Zelena had been waving the dagger when she’d ordered him around. And Mom has it in her underwear drawer.

 

No. Not Mom. He holds out his hand and Ava offers the dagger to him. “Wait,” he whispers. “Let me check on…” 

 

Afraid to let go of the dagger, he edges Mom’s bedroom door open and creeps out, settling down next to the top of the stairs to listen to Mary Margaret’s voice. “I just think you could both do with a sabbatical,” she’s saying in the foyer.

 

“A sabbatical,” Ma repeats. “While I’m trying to take down Zelena?”

 

“There are some concerns that you’re…not going about in the way that’s best for the community.” Mary Margaret’s voice rises in strength. “The problem here isn’t that someone believes that you’re allowing innocents to be hurt, it’s that it isn’t…it isn’t a far-fetched accusation. You haven’t been yourself lately, Emma. Neither of you have.” 

 

“You’re firing me? Because I pissed you off?” Ma says, disbelieving.

 

“And what gives you this authority, Snow White?” Mom’s voice is sleek and dangerous and Henry wants to warn them now, to come down the stairs waving the dagger so they know that Zelena is in control, that Mom isn’t quite Mom anymore and–

 

Mary Margaret is taking a step back, and Henry glances around the corner down the stairs to see her face, grim and determined. “I’ve called for the fairies to join me here. We’re going to take you into custody if you try to resist this.” She softens for a moment. “Emma, I know that you couldn’t have known about Regina's deputies working with Zelena. You can work with us and be reinstated in no time. You just need to–“ 

 

Not-Mom twists her wrist so a little puff of green escapes her hand and Mary Margaret topples to the ground, unconscious.

 

“Regina!” Ma rushes to Mary Margaret, staring up at Mom in betrayal. “Why’d you…” 

 

“Did you have a better idea?” Mom heaves an exasperated sigh. “She’s the only one standing between you and Zelena right now. We have no choice.” 

 

Ma is frozen in place, Mom waiting for an answer, and Henry’s mouth is dry at the tiny smirk that blossoms at Mom’s lips. Confidence, like she’s already won. _No,_ he reminds himself. _No, she hasn’t._ She doesn’t know what he knows, what he’s managed to retrieve, and he squeezes the dagger in his hand and heads back to the ladder.

 

The others are waiting below, and Henry breathes hard. “We don’t have much time. How do we summon the Dark One?” Ava shrugs. He tries waving the dagger. Nothing. He digs it into the earth. Still nothing. He stabs it into a tree frustratedly. 

 

“Careful, boy, you’ll dull the tip of it.” Adi jumps back and Ava gasps. Henry turns carefully, clutching onto the dagger. Rumplestiltskin looms over him, thin-lipped and threatening. “A simple ‘Dark One, I summon thee,’ will suffice. Or you could just…return that dagger. I should congratulate you on liberating it from Zelena.” 

 

“My mom,” Henry brandishes the dagger. Rumplestiltskin leans back. “Tell me where my mom is.” 

 

The Dark One pauses. “I can’t say for sure. Zelena has been…reticent of late. She has a new project, doesn’t she?” His eyes flicker toward the house. Henry can see shadowy figures exiting it, one carrying a third as they head for Ma's car.

 

“Do we really need a potion to wipe her memories? Can’t I just…” Ma’s voice trails off and she hoists Mary Margaret in her arms, laying her down across the back seat of the Bug.

 

“They're some very specific memories,” Mom says, voice soothing. “You don’t want to wipe all memory of you, do you? And you’re in no state for such fine-tuned magic. I’ll need ingredients for a proper potion. Down in my crypt.” She climbs into the passenger seat and Ma slides into the driver’s seat and slams the door with a low curse. 

 

“Here,” Rumplestiltskin says, reaching for the vial of pixie dust. “Nasty stuff, fairy dust. But I can have one of you in Regina’s immediate vicinity with this amount of it.” He tilts his head. “A trade, for my dagger.” 

 

Henry squints at him. “Can’t I just order you to do it?”

 

“You could.” Rumplestiltskin smiles like it’s pulling teeth. “But this way, I’ll owe you a favor. You’ll like my favors, Henry.” He looks at him with a certain amount of fondness, and Henry wonders for a moment–

 

“You’re…you were really my dad’s dad, right?” 

 

“I was.” Grief flickers across his face and Henry feels bad about controlling him at all for a moment. For a moment. He’s read just as many stories about Rumplestiltskin in the book not to go soft on him now.

 

Still, though, it wouldn’t hurt for the Dark One to owe him a favor. “Okay.” He turns his hand to pass the dagger into Rumplestiltskin’s and the man smiles- a real smile, exhausted but genuine, and smashes open the vial of fairy dust. And then the yard and the house fade away and he’s left in darkness.

 

He blinks in the blackness of the room until his eyes begin to adjust and he can see indistinct shapes. A mirror behind him. A chest, a chair, a stack of books…a collection of candles. Is this the crypt Mom had talked about?

 

“Mom?” he whispers. “Mom, are you in here?” 

 

No answer.

 

“Mom?” He picks up one of the heavy candles and reaches for a match. Mom might have magic, but he can’t imagine that she wouldn’t be prepared for anything. He knows her too well, memories or not, and he locates a match under a half-melted candle just as light floods the room from a stairwell he hadn’t noticed.

 

_Crap!_ Ma and not-Mom are here already. He doesn’t have much time.

 

He holds onto his candle and match and looks around wildly, his hand scrabbling onto the wall right where he’d arrived just as Mom’s shoes come into view on the stairs. “She’s more trouble than she’s worth,” Mom is saying, and his fingers close around a nick in the wall. He tugs and it opens silently, just enough for him to slip in and close the door before Mom and Ma see him.

 

On the other side, the mirror is a window, and he can see Mom flick her hands and the candles light themselves. Ma is watching her, still cradling Mary Margaret in her arms. “She’s my mother, Regina. I thought you two were on good terms now? Trading…baby stories and shit. We’re not locking her up in your crypt.” 

 

“Then what now?” Mom demands. “We stand down and get locked up? We’re all this town has against Zelena. They _need_ you, Emma. They don’t need Snow trying to stop you from saving them.” She stretched out her hand and there’s a puff of smoke and suddenly Mary Margaret is awake and locked in a golden cage in the center of the crypt, struggling to break free. Her mouth is open and her face is screwed up like she’s shouting, but no words come out. 

 

“She’s my mother,” Ma repeats hopelessly. “We can’t do this to her. It’s not just about the memories, it’s about _her_. She’s my mother,” she repeats again, reaching out for the bars. Mary Margaret’s eyes light onto her hands with sudden hope.

 

Mom slashes her hand out to catch onto Ma’s, yanking her around to face her. “She _killed_ mine!” Mom says it with so much venom that Henry and Ma both recoil. “So pardon me for wanting her to pay for it.”

 

Ma takes a step back. “Regina, I can’t…” She looks lost, uncertain, eyes flickering from Mary Margaret to Mom. Ma always has answers, always has plans, even when they’re stupid and will probably get her killed. Ma never stops moving, never stops pushing forward even when Henry begs to slow down, not until right now, when she looks torn and in agony. 

 

Mary Margaret is reaching for her, mouth moving silently, and Mom laughs coldly. “I thought you were interested in the greater good, Emma. And really…” She stalks closer, running her fingers along Ma’s cheek until she has her fingers curled around her chin in a simulacrum of gentleness. “Do you think Snow’s ever going to forgive you for all the things you’ve done? When she sees the monster you’ve become?” 

 

She seems almost reflective for a moment, as though she’s drawing these words from deep within. Ma is shaking, eyes narrowed and hands clenched, but she doesn’t pull away. “And it wasn’t me. It wasn’t Zelena who brought you to this.” Mom’s smile is the most malicious Henry’s ever seen it, and for a moment he can imagine the Evil Queen, dark and soulless. 

 

Except this isn’t Mom at all.

 

“A few buttons pushed and you’re already a vigilante,” Mom murmurs, the faux-gentleness in her voice familiar and less and less like Mom with every button she pushes. “Already fighting for whatever justice you’ve decided on.” Her thumb strokes circles on Ma’s cheek. “And now you’re just like me. Wicked to the core.” 

 

Ma pulls away, jolting out of her reverie. “Regina, I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here–“

 

Mom laughs, high and manic and it crawls down the back of Henry’s neck like a memory of the night Walsh had taken him. “ _Regina, Regina, Regina_. Are we still on that fantasy?” She leans back against the golden bars and Mary Margaret slaps at her ineffectually, her blows glancing off the side of the cage as though she can’t break through its walls. “You know who I am, _pet_. You’ve known all along. How much longer are we going to continue the happy delusion?” 

 

Ma stares at Mom- not Mom, _Zelena_ , and Henry’s known it all along- like she’s in pain, like she’s being pulled in a dozen different directions at once and there’s no safety to cling to- and Henry’s hand is on the doorknob before he can think about it. “Please,” Ma whispers. “Please don’t…” She shuts her eyes. “This can’t be real. None of this is…what _am I_?” 

 

“I didn’t have to do a thing,” Zelena whispers silkily, and she’s an alien with Mom’s face and Henry remembers Mom before he can turn the doorknob. He scrapes the match against the wall beside him, struggling to light the candle, but instead his hand hits a switch and a dozen wall lamps and chandeliers turn on, lighting up the room around him.

 

He gapes around at the opulently decorated white walls, at the mirrors that dot the room and at the dresses on stands and at the comfy couches, and at the center of the room, where Mom lies on a flat couch, still as though in death.

 

“Mom,” he whispers in a sob, hurrying to her. “Mom, oh god.” He’d thought about cages like the one that Mary Margaret is in, had thought about her heart locked in a box like the Huntsman’s had been, had imagined a dozen different ways that Mom would be held captive. He’d never allowed himself to imagine that she’d be gone for real, and his heart shatters in devastation.

 

_No,_ he reminds himself. _You’re in a fairytale, Henry. This isn’t how it ends_. He knows the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. _And so the Evil Queen gave Snow White a poisoned apple and she fell into a deep sleep that only true love’s kiss could wake._

 

True love’s kiss. And Ma is just outside this room. 

 

She can do it, can save all of them, he knows it. Whatever Zelena is doing to them now, it can’t last. Mom is a part of them. He loves her now as much without his memories as he’s sure he’d loved her with them, and he knows that Ma loves her, too. With Mom, they’ll be unstoppable. 

 

“I’m…uh…” He worries his hands against the ends of his shirt. “I’ll be right back, okay?” He feels silly speaking to her like this and even sillier when he whispers, “I love you,” loud in the silent room, but warmth rises through him anyway, certainty that it’s going to be okay. He leans over and brushes a kiss to her forehead before he can go face off against Zelena.

 

Magic blows back against him at the moment that his lips touch Mom’s forehead and his eyes fly open in shock and suddenly he’s blown away with a billion realizations at once, a billion memories of her as _Mom_ , of being held in her arms and hanging onto her hand on the first day of school and being wrapped in her embrace as Pan’s curse had threatened to overwhelm them. And the warmth he’d felt before is nothing compared to loving her now, past and present and _Mom, Mom, Mom!_ He feels as though an entire world has opened up within him, everything that had felt wrong righted again, and he’s at the center of it with only one person. “Mom!” he breathes, and her eyes fly open.

 

“Henry? Henry!” Mom is laughing and sitting up to pull him close and she must see the recognition in his eyes behind the tears. “Oh, Henry,” she murmurs, kissing the top of his head. “You broke another curse.” She kisses him again and he melts into her arms and it’s never felt more right and he wants to bubble up with all the joy he can feel in the room around him. “You saved me. You  _loved_ me.” She sounds dazed at the realization, wondering, and he tightens his hold on her.

 

There’s a shriek from somewhere beyond the room and Mom looks up sharply, their reunion forgotten. “Zelena. She must have felt the effects of the curse breaking.” 

 

“You can stop her, right?” Oh wow, he can _feel_ the new confidence, the absolute trust in Mom and Ma that had been wavering without his memories. He knows that Mom and Ma beat the bad guys, that good always defeats evil, that Ma is going to slide right back into her old self now ( _Holy crap, Mom and Ma are dating?_ says the part of him that’s still piecing together Henry-who-was with Henry-who-is) and they’re going to kick Zelena’s butt. 

 

“Last year…” Mom frowns. “Only light magic can destroy Zelena’s power source. Your grandparents cast this curse to find Emma again.” She closes her eyes, bowing her head. “But Emma doesn’t have much light magic to her right now, either. If we’d only known…” 

 

“Who did this?” Zelena is shouting from the other side of the mirror. Ma is standing between her and Mary Margaret’s cage, very pale. Zelena turns to look into the mirror, and suddenly Henry feels a shiver pass through him as realization dawns in her eyes. “Regina,” she snarls, and Ma makes a grab for her as she charges forward.

 

And another realization dawns in his. “You have light magic, Mom. There was just light magic all around us!” 

 

Mom shakes her head. “From you, Henry. All I have is my love for you.”

 

“So use it.” He pulls away from her as the door flies open and Mom stands up, tucking him behind her protectively. “You’re a hero, Mom. I believe in you.”

 

And then there’s Zelena striding into the room, still looking exactly like Mom, with Ma trailing behind her. Ma takes in a sharp breath at the sight of them in the secret room, the real Mom and him in front of the couch, and Zelena laughs gaily. “Morning, sunshine.” 

 

“High-waisted pants? Really?” Mom arches her eyebrows. “If you’re trying to be me, you’re going to have to stop shopping in the section of my closet left over from the eighties.” 

 

Zelena’s face turns thunderous. Mom rises into the air like a puppet, gasping for air, and Ma starts forward. With a single blast of Zelena’s magic, she’s blown across the room. “Did you think this would change anything? Only light magic can harm me, and you’re as dark as they come,” Zelena snarls, stepping forward toward Mom. 

 

Her eyes are fixed on Mom, and Henry scurries away to Ma, helping her up. “Are you okay?” 

 

“I’m… _Henry_.” She stares at him like he’s a stranger. “You remember.” 

 

“Yeah.” He smiles at her, and a lot of the resentment drains away just like that. Not all of it. But Ma’s been through a lot of crap lately and Zelena’s been screwing with her mind and he thinks that maybe she needs someone on her side right now. “I love you.”

 

“We need to…” She struggles forward again. 

 

Zelena ignores her, eyes fixed on Mom. “It was your destiny to be this way. And it will also be your undoing!” she snaps, clenching her hand together into a fist as Mom chokes.

 

Her hand strains to clamp together but it halts in midair, shaking, and Mom wrenches out, “Don’t…tell me…what I can be!” And she looks to them both for only a moment before white magic is exploding out of her hands, crashing into Zelena and sending her flying into the stairwell on the other side of the crypt. Green smoke flies up around the witch, the illusion of Mom gone and replaced with Zelena again.

 

Mom drops her hands, breathing hard as she stalks after Zelena. “I make my own destiny,” she says, yanking her green gem from her cloak, and Zelena explodes with magic that oozes out of her and fades away into the air. Mom turns for a moment and Henry and Ma follow her into the dark front room of the crypt. “Look at that,” Mom says, waving her hands around the golden bars that hold Gram captive. “Someone finally put you in a gilded cage.” The bars fall and disappear in a shower of gold sparks.

 

Gram sobs with relief, burying herself in Mom's arms, and Mom sighs and rolls her eyes but holds her tight anyway. 

 

Ma moves.

 

Henry doesn’t have a moment to process before Ma is lunging forward, grabbing Zelena by the scruff of her neck and shoving her against the side of the crypt, the heel of her hand pressed into Zelena’s throat as the witch struggles.

 

“Emma!” Gram whimpers, and Mom seizes Ma and yanks her off of Zelena so Zelena slides back down to the floor, angry and helpless with a baleful glare as they all stand over her.

 

Ma is breathing hard. “Stop it. You don’t know what she…what I…” She shakes her head, and Henry’s horrified to see tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “I need to kill her. She’s evil, Regina.” 

 

“Yes.” Mom’s face is suddenly pleading, her fingers sliding up and down Ma’s arms. “But she’s my sister.” She sounds as uncertain as Ma had earlier, _She’s my mother,_ the tension that laces the words barely concealing a sliver of hope.

 

Ma is crying now, really crying, and Henry hasn’t seen her like this since Pan’s curse, when all hope had been lost and she’d leaned into Gram’s touch and held onto Mom’s hand like they had been her only safe places in the world. Mom leans forward, pressing her forehead against Ma’s. “We don’t kill, Emma. You didn’t kill me, remember?” 

 

“Emma…” Gram whispers again, staring wide-eyed at the two of them, and Ma whirls around and flees up the steps of the crypt.

 

* * *

**xxiii.ii. damnation**

She’s running through the cemetery, tripping over stones and picking herself up again and she has no idea where she’s going except _away_. Away from three of the people she loves most in the world staring at her like she’s a stranger, away from Zelena’s biting accusations- _the monster you’ve become, the monster you’ve become, the monster you’ve become_ \- and the awareness that she’d devoted–

 

She stumbles forward into a tree and scrapes her palms against it as she laughs, weepy little jerks of mirth that tremble through her body. She’d devoted all she is to Zelena’s destruction and instead she’d fallen for her lies, hook, line, and sinker, and done nothing but watch at the pivotal moment. It had been Regina’s fight all along, and she’d co-opted it for…for…

 

_Happy delusion._

 

Her fingers itch with the magic that had left her when confronted by Zelena, itch with the need to strike at _someone_ , to hurt as she’s been totally swept away today. This can’t be the end of her fight, Zelena gone and Regina the hero and nothing for Emma to show for it. Henry! Henry had been there, had seen her…had he seen Zelena taunting her? Did he know what she’d–

 

She heaves herself forward and lands on soft purple moss. 

 

The garden. Of course she’d run to the garden. She buries her face in grass that smells like Regina still, flat on the ground as her magic flows around her, and she can feel the oppressive heat of it as it scorches into the earth and burns away the scent of lavender and apples and cinnamon from around them. 

 

All she wants is for this to be her pyre, to be taken away as swiftly as the garden, to finally _flee_ just as her mother and Henry had both accused her of doing. There’s no coming back from this. She thinks of the dwarves and Archie and even Spencer and wary faces following her around Granny’s and she’s _done_ , she’s burned all bridges here and there’s no one who would run with her anymore.

 

Regina is a hero tonight and she’s…the villain? The one who’s thrown the town into disarray, who’d willingly worked with the bad guys and never questioned it. And yeah, maybe deep down she’d known exactly what she was doing. She’d known something was wrong and hadn’t cared because she’d been uncontrolled, unfettered by the morality she’s lived by until now.

 

There are no victories for the villain, she thinks, and then there’s a shout from somewhere above her and slow certainty oozes through her veins like cool liquid. “You’re on fire! Sheriff–“ Robin Hood is calling, and she stands up, one victory still hers for the night.

 

“I know you were working with Zelena,” she says, and her magic rises with the tone of her voice. She’s back in control, the night seized from her but one final target washed in with the tide.

 

Robin looks confused. “I…what?”

 

“She’s gone now.” Emma smiles blandly. “Defeated. Now it’s just you left.”

 

She strikes hard, magic exploding from her as she launches her attack at him, blasting him with blue fire that scorches and burns at his skin and he’s screaming and it feels so empty. There’s none of the satisfaction of before, none of the energy that had galvanized her against Zelena, just grim desire to punish that will never find its mark. 

 

She’s tied so much of her self-worth into the pursuit of Zelena that without it, she can’t even find what little self she has left, and she stares at blue fire blankly as it burns at Robin Hood’s skin.

 

And then there are hands on her wrists, pulling her back, and an urgent voice behind her is calling, “Stop it! _You’re killing him!_ ”and their garden is gone but Regina is still there, still hanging onto her, and she wants to laugh at another piece of them destroyed.

 

“He’s working with Zelena!” 

 

“No, he isn’t!” Regina snaps at her with the wealth of a year of memories she’s only just regained. “He has a son, Emma! He’s a father! You’re killing him!” Her fingers reach at Emma’s hands, her voice urgent and trembling. “He has a son!” 

 

She holds onto Emma and Emma scrambles for the evidence that had piled up, suspicions with strong basis, and all she can think of is Regina informing her that he’d once been her soulmate. All she can remember is blinding jealousy and nothing that had justified any of this and she drops her hands and Robin Hood staggers backward and falls, his skin bubbling hot with blisters and bloody gouges, and she’s...  _the monster you’ve become._

 

She thinks about her mother, whirling around above her in a maelstrom of her fury. Of Henry’s eyes glazing over as she wipes the peskiest memories away. Of Granny tied to a chair and Archie being tugged over the town line and how easy it had been to pull out Walsh’s heart and crush it. And Robin Hood on the ground as Regina hurries to him with hands flooding white magic as she struggles to undo the darkness Emma had wrought.

 

She calls on the magic that had corrupted her, beckons it forth and commands it with all she has. _Destroy._  And she feels her body erupt in pain as she manages to defeat the only villain still on the loose tonight. 

 

There’s an anguished cry as hands press to her skin, cool within a furnace, and Emma shudders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A necessary addendum: I am not fond of canon Robin Hood right now, but at the time that this part of the fic was plotted (months ago), I was rather neutral on him. I chose him to be Emma's only ~innocent victim~ specifically because of that, because I needed someone who wasn't fully integrated into the story but someone who I didn't hate, because I want to be an objective writer as much as possible. (Hook would have been a good option, too, but I knew I couldn't trust myself to write something like this without letting my biases come into play, so I chose to go in this direction.) So this is mostly to assure all of you that this wasn't a malicious plot point, I didn't do this because of his canon relationship with Regina, I did it only because it was necessary to the story and it is by no means anything but a failure on Emma's part (and an important one!).
> 
> I know most of you probably don't care either way, but I just wanted to get that out there. :)


	14. Chapter 14

**xxv. innervation**

“It isn't so simple.” The Blue Fairy waves her hand and her wand disappears. She looks around Regina’s bedroom with distaste- _You want me to sit down in_ her _home?_ \- and remains standing, hands folded primly in front of her. “With Robin Hood, I could spare him from death and he will heal externally in time. Your daughter used her own magic on herself.” She doesn’t call her _Emma_ , just stares down, aloof and disdainful, and Regina grits her teeth under pursed lips.

 

Snow frowns. “But she was fine. I saw her when Regina brought her in, and she was…she isn’t even hurt.” She strokes Emma’s face, brushes hair aside, and Regina is silently envious. She isn’t outing Emma or their relationship while the other woman is unconscious, but Snow hasn’t torn her eyes away from Emma since they’d reached the hospital the night before and the distance she’s forced to keep has her fingers itching.

 

Henry squeezes her hand and Regina slides her arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer to her. “Magic is hardwired to protect its owner,” she says. “But Emma wanted to…to…” Her voice cracks and she falls silent.

 

The Blue Fairy glances her way, taking her measure with assessing eyes before she turns back to Snow. “Your daughter tried to hurt herself. But physically, her magic couldn’t do her much harm.”

 

“Physically,” David repeats. He’s cradling the baby in one arm, pacing back and forth behind Snow. His fingers trail across Snow’s shoulders and she recoils. “That’s good, right?” 

 

“She tried to destroy her heart.” The Blue Fairy glances at Regina again, eyes narrowing. She can’t possibly know what had happened when Emma had self-destructed, can she? “She failed, of course. The level of discipline needed to keep an attack going when in that state is…improbable.” But she doesn’t sound so certain about it. Regina keeps her face even. “Her heart sustained a shock, though. It may take a while for her to wake. I can’t do anything that she won’t do better on her own time.” 

 

Her lip curls, ever so slightly. Snow hasn’t looked away from Emma and misses it. “Thank you, Blue,” she says, and David- who’s been watching Blue- catches Regina’s eye in solidarity, his own jaw grinding at the fairy's silent hostility. 

 

Blue departs the room, David leading her downstairs, and Regina sees the clock and forces herself to rise. “Time for school, Henry.”

 

“ _Seriously_?” Henry gapes up at her in wounded betrayal. “School? You’re not going to work today.” 

 

She folds her arms. “I’m working from home.” She glances down the hall for a moment toward her cleared-out guest room, watching the ripples of Blue’s other spell over the doorway. “I have other responsibilities here, you know that. And I don’t want you missing any more school.” She gives him a little push. “Go with David, sweetheart. By the time you get back, your mother might be wandering around the house complaining about the lack of junk food.”

 

Henry looks as though he might protest, and she arches her eyebrow, ready for battle. Instead, he throws his arms around her, pressing himself in so tightly that his words are muffled against her shirt. “Liar. I know Ruby came by earlier with a box.” Regina had been surprised that she’d been willing to, from the accounts that Henry had given her of her time asleep, but Ruby hadn’t mentioned Granny’s injury or Zelena, just handed over the box of pastries- far more than Regina had ordered- and asked if they’d needed anyone to man the station today.

 

Emma has retained some of the grace of her friends, it seems. And Ruby smiles at her with less wariness than she might’ve a week before, her memories of their year as allies returned at last.

 

Life goes on, and with Zelena defeated, the sun seems a bit brighter today, the air a bit cleaner, the birds a bit louder. Only in this room does horror and sorrow still hang heavily over them.

 

Well, and in the hospital room she’d ventured past earlier in the night, a crowd of Merry Men standing vigil and little Roland outside of it in Mulan’s arms, sobbing for his papa. Her memories are back, Robin Hood now someone she’d loathed and not-loathed at the same time in the missing year, and she’d been brought inside to do what she could for his burns.

 

Which is not enough, not for him to recover. She isn’t skilled at healing magic, doesn’t have the knack that Emma had developed even now that she’s found these reservoirs of light magic within her. Minor cuts and scrapes are easy, but magically charged burns that deep…

 

She sighs and Henry looks up at her askance. “School,” she repeats firmly.

 

He kisses her on the cheek, and then starts toward Emma, carefully placing his lips against her forehead. She doesn’t move, and he bites his lip, looking disappointed. “ _Fine_. Love you, Moms.”

 

Once he’s gone, David and the baby with him, Snow says with eyes still fixed on Emma’s face, “How long is a while, Regina?” 

 

Regina shakes her head, then realizes that Snow won’t see it. “I can’t say. A few hours at best. A week or longer at worst.” She remembers the feel of Emma’s heart, the explosiveness of her magic as she’d touched it, and she doesn’t know. “She’ll be safe here. You should sleep.” 

 

“So should you.” Emma is always jittery, fingers dancing and legs rocking and eyes moving, but her mother is still like a rock, unmoving and focused. “The dreams are worst if you try to keep them away.”

 

 _The dreams_. She’d forgotten about the fire room that had burned Henry after he’d eaten her apple. “If that’s supposed to make me _want_ to sleep…” 

 

“You can take Henry’s room,” Snow breaks in. “I mean, I guess there isn’t anywhere else, but…” There’s a light tint of pink in her cheeks. “It’ll help. It helps to be around whoever woke you up.” 

 

“I’m not leaving Emma.” It’s as close as she’s going to get to telling Snow about any of it, about how her plan had been to sleep in _this_ bed if Snow would just _leave._ And she takes the coward’s way out a moment later. “I’m the only one who can help if something goes wrong.”

 

“Thank you.” Snow curls her fingers around Emma’s hand and then wheels around, and Regina sees red eyes for the first time since this hell had begun, wet and ringed with dark circles. “You knew. I don’t know how you could have–“ She bites back whatever she’d been about to say, and Regina watches her warily. “I’m sorry. I want to blame you, but that isn’t really fair, is it?” 

 

“I don’t know.” She’s exhausted and she doesn’t want to fight with Snow again, not over Emma when Emma’s in front of them with her head spread out across her pillow and her face dull and grey. “I suppose not.”

 

“I thought she would never…I don’t really know her at all anymore, do I?” Snow seizes Regina’s hand with both of hers before Regina can pull away, wide-eyed and determined. “Tell me how this happened. What made her…where did she go, Regina?” 

 

 _Snow, Snow, Snow_. Snow looks for _reasons_ , for bridges to carry people back from darkness to light, and she’s still struggling to understand the world that exists within those bridges, the shades of grey that they wander within. “She didn’t go anywhere. She’s just been struggling for a long time.” Since she’d returned to Storybrooke, since all she’d found there had been grief. ( _Not all_ , thinks the part of Regina that she’s been trying desperately to ignore all night and morning.) “I gave her perfect happiness and we pulled away the curtain and revealed that it had all been a dream.”

 

“I didn’t know she was suffering. I love her! How couldn’t I have known–“ 

 

Snow looks to her beseechingly and all she can think to say is, “Did you know I was in pain when I was married to your father?” Which is too much, to draw a comparison there, to acknowledge that Snow had loved her, too. To bring in their decades of baggage when there’s already a world of hurt to confront, Emma lying still in front of them and another hurdle to cross just down the hall. 

 

But Snow sags at the words, drops to the floor bonelessly as though she’d been shoved, her hands still locked around Regina’s. “Regina.” She’s on her knees and she’s holding onto Regina and she’s looking up at her with red eyes. “Why can’t I hold onto any of you?” she whispers pleadingly, and _oh_ , Regina hasn’t cried since the moment when Emma’s magic had been surging around them but now she can feel her throat closing up and the tears threatening to burst through and _dammit_ , not over Snow White. Not now. Not anymore. 

 

“Emma never wanted…she loves you so much, Snow.” 

 

Snow laughs, soft breaths that catch in her throat. “You haven’t spoken to her recently.”

 

“She loves you.” Of that Regina is certain, even when Emma had hidden away from her mother in Regina’s arms and in magic. “This is her…idiotic, misguided, bighearted–“ She cuts herself off as Snow’s brow furrows at the emotion in her voice. “This is how she protects you. I wasn’t so noble,”  she says dryly. “I hid my feelings from you because I wanted you dead.” 

 

Snow laughs again in little sobs, and Regina leans forward to pull her up, the two of them stumbling to a stand together with their hands still locked. “I don’t know how to live in a world where love isn’t enough.”

 

It stings in ways Snow can’t possibly understand, and Regina snaps, “Well, get used to it,” before she can stop herself. 

 

“Regina!” Snow says, hurt again, and ghosts dance around Regina's eyes, of Daniel and her mother and Emma being eaten alive by blue lightning, and then Snow says quietly, “Oh.”

 

“Love is everything,” Regina agrees, softening her voice. “It’s…Henry is _everything._ Emma is everything– for you,” she amends swiftly. “But sometimes there's more at stake than just hugs and kisses can cure. You’re not the first parent with a child who’s struggling with things you’d rather ignore,” she admits, swallowing her pride.

 

“What did you do?” Snow looks to her and there’s bare faith behind her eyes, no more condescension. No more denial. Only Snow, trusting Regina with her heart once more. With _Emma_. “Henry gave you ultimatums, didn’t he? Emma would never ask me for anything.”

 

“Henry didn’t give me ultimatums.” He’d talked about magic and he’d been miserable when she’d used it, but it had been she who’d made her own decision to give it up for him. “I just learned to listen.” 

 

“To…” Snow nods, exhaling slowly. “I can do that. If I can manage to get her to _talk_ , anyway.” They share a rueful look at that, the two people who know Emma’s reticence best in sighing agreement.

 

“You won't be able to if you’re too exhausted to think. Though in that case…have you slept at all in the past fifty years?” She gets a half smile for the effort and says with gentleness, “Go. Go home and rest. Take some time with your son…does he have a name yet?” 

 

“Neal,” Snow supplies. Regina stares at her. Snow gives her a helpless shrug. “We’re trying out Baelfire as a nickname. It might be a little less…confusing.”

 

“Take some time with _Baelfire_. I’ll watch over Emma.” 

 

“Soon,” Snow promises, settling back down on her chair. “And Regina?” She’s already reaching for Emma again, eyes back on her. “Love might not have been enough for you for a long time. I might’ve– we might’ve taken love from each other. But you’re not alone anymore. You still have family.” She offers her a wan smile. “Not just Henry. You have us- David and Emma and me. And you have…maybe there’s still something else to salvage.” 

 

It’s the first time anyone has given voice to her secret thoughts, has motioned in the direction of her guest room with anything but caution. Regina shakes her head, unwilling to consider the ideas that have been creeping up in her mind for weeks now. “She’s tried to hurt people I love. She’s angry and bitter and…” 

 

“And so were you, once upon a time.” Snow closes her eyes. “You can’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about it.” When she opens them again, they’re still red-rimmed but knowing, and Regina scoffs and stalks out of her room.

 

There’s another shimmer from the door to the guest room and Regina knows it means Zelena had been standing there not long ago, listening to their conversation. “Subtle,” she comments when she steps into the room and her sister is sitting on the bed against the headboard, knees up and hands linked over them.

 

Zelena glares up at her, silent.

 

“Snow White thought I should talk to you.” Regina sits down opposite her, crossing her legs and watching the ghost of… _something…_ cross Zelena’s face. “Snow White is a fool.” 

 

There’d been a time when she might’ve offered Zelena a second chance like the one she’d gotten, where she might’ve talked about their mother and destiny and hope. But today Emma is lying unconscious in the next room, Emma would have been dead if not for what had transpired between them, and she isn’t feeling so charitable. “You poisoned me. You…you traumatized Emma. And most of all,” she leans forward and Zelena’s face darkens. “You kidnapped my son. Unforgivable.

 

“The only reason you’re here is because there’s no one capable of dealing with you in the sheriff’s station and we don’t know yet if your magic is totally gone or not. I don’t want you here,” she presses forward, savagely glad when Zelena’s face closes off even more.

 

“I don’t want to be here, either,” Zelena grinds out. “So forgive me if I’m not feeling much sympathy.” 

 

An odd familiarity strikes her, as though she’s seen this position before in this very place. _Oh_. Emma sits like this when she’s feeling defensive, knees up or legs crossed and gradually closing herself off from the world. She remembers for a moment the night Walsh had– the night _Zelena_ had taken Henry, when Emma had lost control and been huddled in the woods, eyes full of red-rimmed fire. 

 

Her resolve weakens and she scoffs at her own sentimentality. “Did you enjoy it?” she says, changing tacks abruptly.

 

“What?” 

 

“Living my life. How was that for you?” She tilts her head. “Were you planning on wearing my face forever? Loving my son for me? Running my town? Living with my…” She breaks off. When they’d moved Zelena into the guest room, she’d been overwhelmed with relief at the sight of Emma’s belongings in it. For all Zelena had done to Emma, it seems that she hadn’t taken advantage of her in at least one way. “Was it good for you?” 

 

“It was enough.” There’s a hollowness to Zelena’s voice, an emptiness in her eyes, and Regina _knows_ , knows with all the experience of someone else who’d reached an ending and found it lacking. They let their vengeance consume them and then…who else are they, if not vengeance? How do they ever find a way to be any more than that?

 

Regina had found tiny hands and inquisitive eyes and a little body gathered in her arms, had found _family_ and bit by bit expanded it until now her heart is so full that it overwhelms her sometimes with how much she loves the people she’s let into her life. She’d found a woman whose life she’d taken from her, a boy who she’d lied to for a year, a woman she’d tried to kill dozens of times–

 

And Zelena has nothing, an empty receptacle left craving meaning in her life again. Zelena who could have been her sister instead of her enemy. Zelena who stares down at her lap like Emma and hides her face but can’t hide the desperate need for…for…

 

 _Connection_.

 

Regina wavers again. “No,” she says. “It wouldn’t be. I spent eighteen years running this town when no one knew who I was and it was never enough. And it wasn’t until it was over- until my revenge failed and my enemies had defeated me- it wasn’t until then that I found most of the people I…”  She hesitates.

 

“ _Love_ ,” Zelena spits out in a half-snarl, and it’s easier than ever to see naked longing on her face, barely locked away behind her sneer.

 

“After Emma’s awake,” Regina says, and she doesn’t know what she’s promising or why except there’s another piece of her heart snaking out now, struggling to find purchase in someone new. Someone who looks so much like she once had, and she’s beginning to understand Snow’s compassion for a fallen queen and hates it, hates Zelena, hates this whole damned situation she’s been thrust into. “I’ll be back then.”

 

Zelena puffs out an irritable little sigh and turns away before Regina can see her reaction, and Regina stands, exhaustion finally taking hold of her. She’s relieved to see that Snow had slipped out sometime during her stilted conversation with her sister, and Emma is finally alone.

 

Emma is never so still when she’s sleeping. She tosses and turns, shifts every few seconds and lets out unintelligible murmurs, and if not for the fact that Regina tends to be safely ensconced in her arms when she’s moving, she’d probably never sleep. It’s unnerving to see Emma like this, breathing lightly with eyes closed but unmoving, and she doesn’t react to Regina crawling in beside her and placing a tentative hand on her hip.

 

Regina watches her, still exhausted but suddenly weighed down with a burden she’s been struggling to avoid. It’s been easy not to think since she’d been pricked by that needle, to wake up and jump into action and there’d been Henry-Zelena-Emma-Snow and so much to absorb, too much to focus on when she’d been needed. 

 

But now she can see Emma and wonder about the week of self-destructive darkness Emma had been immersed in, the wariness of the town around Emma in the hospital and the quick rundown of the events of the week that Henry had given her.  _“Zelena’s been really tough on Emma,”_ he’d said, and Henry rarely sees any weakness in Emma. 

 

But whatever Zelena had done, it hadn’t been what had sent Emma down this path. Zelena had provoked and Emma had responded and Snow can blame herself all she wants, but it had been Regina who’d seen it coming and not been able to stop it. Regina who’d tried to be everything Emma had needed and had failed miserably. 

 

She closes her eyes for a moment and opens them again to fire raging around her, and she dreams for hours and hours until there are gentle hands brushing aside her hair and whispering her name.

 

She opens her eyes. Green eyes stare back, and Emma lets her fingers trail down along her jaw to her chin and settle on the bed beside them. “You were crying in your sleep,” she murmurs. 

 

“Bad dreams.” Regina’s eyes are glued to hers.

 

Emma doesn’t look away, and Regina can feel her skin heating up at the intensity of Emma’s gaze. Emma whispers, “Hey.” 

 

“Hey,” Regina echoes.

 

Emma doesn’t smile, just winces for a moment and puts a hand on her chest instinctively. Regina covers it, faint magic still pulsing between them. Emma shivers. “I’m not dead.” She says it with vague unease that prickles at the back of Regina’s neck.

 

“Not yet,” Regina corrects her wryly. “I would tread lightly around Henry for a while if I were you.” 

 

Emma arches an eyebrow. “Henry?”

 

“Or someone.” Her fingers slide between Emma’s and she tries hard not to think about what has to come next. For Emma. For both of them. For this moment, they can have this. “How does it feel?”

 

“Hurts.” Emma closes her eyes and Regina feels their absence, feels her heart squeezing painfully at the loss of Emma’s gaze. “I missed you.”

 

“You didn’t know I was gone.” 

 

“Yeah.” Her eyes open again, and it’s like she suddenly can’t keep herself expressionless and sleepy anymore, can’t close the shutters and hide away agonized guilt that only firms Regina’s resolve. “I think I did.”

 

* * *

 

**xxvi. suffocation**

Her heart aches. “It’s healing,” Regina promises, and when she lays her fingers across Emma’s chest, it hurts a tiny bit less, Regina sharing her burden with her. “It might just take some time. It’s going to feel like…heavy depression, I suppose.” 

 

“So not very different than yesterday, huh?” Her teeth are gummy and gross and she wishes she’d brushed them while they were still upstairs. Now going up there without Regina seems an insurmountable task. She drinks her water and sits forward on the couch, legs curling up under her, and Regina takes her glass and silently refills it in the kitchen while Emma presses her hand to her chest and feels her heart throbbing beneath it, dull and raw like a new sunburn. “Is this normal?” 

 

“For a suicide attempt?” Regina’s voice gets funny when she talks about it, dangerous and restrained at the same time. Emma doesn’t dare comment- to correct her or confirm, she doesn’t know. “No. It’s next to impossible that you’d be able to hurt your heart like that. It’s even more impossible that you survived. I can’t imagine that we’d be able to find much information about it.” 

 

Emma drinks more water. Regina sits beside her, back straight and her thumbs pressing tightly against her phone. Emma can see shockwaves arcing out from where she’s squeezing the touchscreen, echoes of vibrating curves against her finger. “I’m sorry.”

 

“You’re–“ Regina’s eyes flicker, fury burning hot for a moment before she takes a breath and shakes her head. “You don’t need to apologize to me. You didn’t do anything to hurt _me_.” She lets go of the phone to touch Emma’s heart again, fingers trembling. 

 

She thinks about Zelena’s airy dismissal of _that night_ and she says, “Yeah. I did. I shouldn’t have pushed you into fighting at Zelena’s house. I know you’ve worked hard on…being careful.” It’s the easiest way to avoid addressing just what Regina had been careful about, what Emma’s been steeped in for so long.

 

Regina’s breath hitches and her body curves forward slightly into something softer, kissing the side of Emma’s forehead. Emma loosens too, daring to reach a hand to touch Regina’s back, and the other woman crumples into her embrace. “You don’t need to apologize,” Regina repeats, head dropping down to her shoulder. Emma's heart throbs with need, different than the pain from before. “I’ve been where you are.” 

 

 _Are_. Not _were_. Regina knows just as well as she does that you can’t burn up all the darkness within you and call it a night. She slumps, taking Regina with her, and Regina reluctantly pulls her knees up to the couch, too, and curls up beside her. 

 

Tension fills the room like dirt in a grave, rising and piling on until it’s stiflingly painful, but Emma still can’t breathe unless they’re close enough to touch. Regina seems unwilling to leave her side, either, which she takes as a good sign. She has no idea where they’re holding right now, but she can’t imagine it’s a pleasant place. “What did you do?”

 

“You know what I did. Mortally wounding a few men would have been merciful from me.” Emma can feel Regina’s lashes tickling her neck as her eyes close. “You'd have had a long way to go before you’d be where _I_ was.” 

 

“No, I meant…” She shivers. “When there’s nothing left. And it feels like…” Like she’d been dancing around with a stick of dynamite and a match, waiting for one to set off the other, and then the match had lit the string and there’d been no explosion. “Like everything’s the same, but…” 

 

“Empty,” Regina finishes. She laughs tiredly. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I did. One day, hating Snow White just wasn’t enough anymore and I turned to find love instead. You just…live your life, I suppose. Go through the motions of goodness until you start to feel it.” She sounds skeptical about that, uneasy with talk of good and evil as she’s ever been, and Emma feels a surge of affection toward her for it. “I’m not the one to talk to about that.” 

 

“Because you think it’s a load of shit.” 

 

Regina kisses her again, lips pressed against her neck. “Indeed. But it’s what Henry wanted from me, and I think…I think there may be something to it. He’s a very clever boy.”

 

“I don’t feel very good right now.” She’s tired and nervous and she isn’t angry or scared, but she’s also only been around Regina. And she’s exhausted her anger toward Regina many, many months ago.

 

“You were always good. Whatever that means.” Regina still sounds dubious, but her voice strengthens with her words. “You have a family who loves you unconditionally. You have _Henry_. Zelena is defeated and whatever darkness you’d directed toward her…it isn’t going to go away because she isn’t a threat anymore, but once you open yourself to love again, it might get easier to live with it.”

 

“Yeah? That’s all?” She laughs. _Open yourself to love again_. Sometimes she forgets that Regina is, at the core, still a fairytale character, still believes that people can be fixed with a few magic words.

 

Regina nudges her like she knows she’s being mocked. “That. Trips to Archie. Magic lessons again. Talking about your goddamned feelings instead of repressing them until you start hurting innocent people.” Well. Maybe Regina isn’t _completely_ lost to Snow White’s sunshine world. “Where do you want to start?”

 

“Did you save Robin Hood?” She asks the question that’s been niggling and she’s been afraid to bring up for fear of Regina’s face darkening even more.

 

But Regina looks gratified, almost relieved, and maybe it was the right question after all. “The Blue Fairy-“ Emma cranes her neck down just in time to see Regina’s nose wrinkle with distaste. “Was able to repair most of the damage. I had been…occupied.”

 

“With me.”

 

Regina sits back, pulling out of Emma’s arms, and Emma winces at the dark look she gets in response. “Yes.”

 

“Right.” Emma touches the spot where the throbbing is emanating from. “How exactly did you manage to save me? Because you said earlier that it was impossible that–“ 

 

The door opens and Regina nearly jumps up in her eagerness to escape. Emma stares wide-eyed at her, fumbling through worst-case scenarios until she sees who’d arrived and wishes she’d spent that moment fleeing the room instead.

 

Her mother stands in the doorway, hand to her mouth and eyes teary, and Snow takes a step forward before she stops herself. Her face tightens, her eyes clear up, and she steps backward instead. “Emma,” she says in a voice so controlled that Emma barely recognizes it. Snow overflows with emotions, even when they’re frustrating and Emma can’t understand them at all. To see her without them is…

 

She’s fucked up everything. She’d tried to run again and now she’s still alive and everything is so _hard_ , more messes to mop up and more people to make everything up to. “Hi,” she says, wavering, and she’s about to flee when there are voices behind the door and Henry flies into the house and her arms. 

 

“Mom! Ma,” he corrects himself. “You’re okay!” 

 

There are the moments when Henry’s arms are around her that all she is is love, that she can’t imagine how she’d ever looked into the world and seen anything but light. And Regina has moved, drawn in by Henry- always drawn in by Henry- and her hand is on his shoulder so her knuckles are surreptitiously touching her side and Emma feels so _full_ for a moment, understands how _open yourself to love_ could ever be enough. 

 

“Yeah, I guess so.” She grins down at him for a moment and watches the way his eyes dim once the relief ebbs away. And the good feelings fade just as rapidly. 

 

He pulls back and she says, “Can we talk?” just as David rushes into the house with the same energy as Henry, eyes lighting up when he sees her. 

 

“I did not install a revolving door,” Regina grumbles, but Henry backs away with her and closes his hand around hers on his shoulder. She falls silent again, mollified, and David is free to wrap Emma in an embrace of his own. 

 

“We were so worried,” he murmurs in her ear, and she puts her hands against his back and closes her eyes so she can’t see Snow, still frozen in place in the doorway as the others brush past her. “Zelena put us all through the grinder, didn’t she?” 

 

He’s still holding her when she understands what she’s been given. _A way out._ It’s all Zelena’s doing, she’s been a helpless victim, and the town will embrace her again as their savior. And it can’t be David who’s come up with that angle. David is goodhearted and believes the best in people and he’d willingly accept it, but what has to be a blatant lie to anyone who’d been down in the crypt- or heard about it from someone who’d been down there- would have to have been constructed by someone far more crafty. 

 

She opens her eyes and sees Snow again, and this time something hard and stubborn is visible past the mask on her face. Of course. No child of Snow’s could ever be anything other than pure and uncorrupted. 

 

She feels defiance first, stubbornness second, and maybe this isn’t the healthiest reason for owning her mistakes but she’s still glad when she says, “It wasn’t Zelena, David. It was me. I did some pretty shitty things on my own.” She reaches out for Henry before David can do any more than shake his head and open his mouth to object. “Can we talk?” she says again, and Henry bobs his head and follows her into Regina’s study. 

 

“I know,” he says before they’re even seated. “It was the magic, right?” His eyes shine at her expectantly and she’s taken by surprise. “I didn’t know when I didn’t have my memories but now I do and I get it. Magic made you this way. It’s why you tried to make me leave town and why you were letting people get hurt.” He sounds in a rush to convince her and himself and get this whole conflict over with, and he sounds so very twelve years old. “Magic does bad things.”

 

“Yeah.” She remembers clawing at herself and cursing her magic and she hadn’t thought it had sounded so much like an excuse until it’s Henry saying it and she can barely tell the difference between David’s earnest trust and Henry’s. “ _No_ ,” she corrects herself. “People do bad things. Magic just helps us along sometimes.”

 

Henry watches her warily and the door creaks slightly as Regina slips inside. “I had to get away from your parents. Snow was talking about _staying for dinner_ ,” she bites out, but her eyes hold no hostility, only concern for them both, and Emma doesn’t know how it is that she can feel tension with Regina and tension with Henry but it all fades away when it’s the three of them together. 

 

Henry scoots over and Regina takes the invitation to join them on the couches and declines it politely, settling instead behind her desk and rifling through papers while Emma tries again. “I wanted to take you back to New York because I’ve been…Henry, I’ve been so miserable here. And I was so happy there. And I guess I thought that if I took you back and pretended that I didn’t remember anything, we might’ve been able to recapture that happiness.” 

 

Henry’s brow furrows. “Why are you miserable here? This is your home. You love this town.” 

 

“I love _you,_ ” she corrects him. “And your mom gave me eleven perfect years of memories of what we could have had, and suddenly…I would have taken that, Henry.” Her eyes are glassy with tears she won’t let free. “I would have taken eleven years with you and never met my parents or saved this town and I know that you’ll never be okay with that, I know you need me to be a hero, but when you didn’t have your memories–“ She stops at a choked sob from Henry. “Henry?” 

 

He’s nearly crying, face turning red and screwing up in preparation, and Regina is halfway around the desk by the time Emma makes it to the opposite couch. “I don’t want you to be a hero sometimes,” he whispers. “I don’t…I’m not good, either.” He gulps in a breath. “I want Mom and I want you and I wish we’d left town that night when we were supposed to and none of this would have ever happened. I don’t even care about Zelena.” Regina joins them, wraps her arms around him as Emma does and he wipes furiously at his tears. “I’m not the truest believer anymore,” he says hopelessly, and Emma knows the fear that comes with renouncing a title so heavy.

 

And Regina says, “No, _no_ , sweetheart. You’ve been the hero this whole time. You saved me, didn’t you? You figured out that Zelena was here and you took the dagger from her and you woke me up. You’ve been stronger and braver than anyone else in this town.” 

 

She glares meaningfully at Emma and Emma takes up the thread, remembering herself. “You’re the one who told me, kid. Heroes don’t get the easiest path. You stuck around and you kept us all together and wanting to be somewhere else when you were doing that only makes you even more of a believer.”

 

Henry shakes his head. “I stopped believing in you, Ma,” he whispers, and she feels her heart freeze over. “I didn’t want you to be a hero anymore. When I didn’t have my memories…I just wanted everything to be easy again.” 

 

She takes in a shaky breath and Regina grips her elbow in tight solidarity and loosens her grip on Henry. “Henry,” she murmurs, pulling him to her. “You believe because…because somehow your mom raised you that way.” Regina’s eyes shoot up and she gapes at her. “You believed in heroes and happy endings because of this town, because of where you grew up and who you grew up with. You and I…we didn’t believe in that stuff when it was just us.” 

 

Henry reaches for Regina and Regina kisses the top of his head, leans over him and kisses Emma lightly on the lips, holds them both and says shakily, “I believed in happy endings because of _you,_ Henry. You were my happy ending.” 

 

“You’re my happy ending,” Emma echoes, and she doesn’t know if she’s talking to Henry or Regina or both of them together but her heart feels overfull and stretched with so much feeling in its damaged center. “I swear, Henry, I’m going to do what I can to be better.” 

 

“To _feel_ better,” Henry emphasizes, still so concerned for her that she wants to cry. “I don’t want you to be miserable here. I…I was,” he says, sparing a worried glance at his other mother. She tilts her head, dark eyes sorrowful, and he plunges onward. “I know what it’s like to find out that nothing you believed in was real. I guess…I mean I guess everyone does. But I can help you. If you want.” 

 

A part of her shudders at the idea of it, of being anything but strong for Henry for even an instant, and she doesn’t know how Regina manages vulnerability with him so easily but she envies her for it. She musters up the words, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and presses a kiss to his hair- it’s been getting shaggy, she’d thought that Regina would have it cut this past week but it’s only gotten shaggier instead with her gone- and his eyes light up in response.

 

“I’m actually…” She waves vaguely at the door. “I didn’t really wash up when I woke up.” She makes a beeline for the door of the office and is grateful to see that the front door is closed and her parents are gone. 

 

Home free, she heads up the stairs to the bathroom, remembering just as she’s about to enter it that her towel is still in the guest room, and she turns to the left and walks through the door of the bedroom. There’s an odd sensation when she passes through the doorway, like walking through ice water, and she blinks with confusion and then stops short, breath hitching in shock.

 

Zelena looks up from her book and sits back, eyes darkening at the sight of her. 

 

Emma says, “What…the…fuck.”

 

“Emma! Emma, wait, don’t–“ Regina is hurrying up the steps, sounding harried, and she, too, falls silent when she comes up behind Emma. “I was going to wait to tell you about this  _after_ –“ 

 

“What is this? Is this a halfway house for Team Dark Magic now?” Emma demands. “ _Zelena_? Do you even remember what she did to you?” She takes a step back. Regina is shaking her head, distraught, and Zelena glares at her, defiance in her eyes. “Our son sleeps in this house!”

 

“That damned fairy put up wards around the room–“ 

 

“That’s what you’re counting on? _Wards_? We had wards up, Regina! What good did they do?” Zelena is smirking to herself, pleased with her agitation, and Emma backs up out of the room, storms out to Regina’s bedroom, Regina just behind her. “Do you expect us to live in this house with her? _Again_?” She’s repulsed at the idea of it, of knowing that Zelena is here and…

 

Regina’s staring down at Emma's hands and Emma raises them, staring at the magic sparking around them. _Oh no. Oh, no_. “Regina, I can’t,” she says pleadingly, gesturing with them. “Look at this. How am I supposed to be here and get better with _her_ around?” 

 

“Actually,” Regina says, and Emma’s heart sinks deeper still. “I thought we should talk about that, too.” 

 

She takes a step back. “No.” 

 

Regina steps forward, seizing her hands until the fire quiets from them. “Emma, we’re not good for each other. Not now.” 

 

“How can you say that?” They’d felt more like a family in that office than ever before, letting go and holding on and finding the right words for Henry together. “Is this about that night?” 

 

“No. Yes.” Regina sinks down onto one of the chairs around the bed. “I’ve been a crutch for you, Emma. You’ve been a crutch for me. And when things went downhill…I _saw_ what was happening. I knew what you were doing. And I was too caught up in…in us.” She shrugs helplessly. “I didn’t want to disturb the balance we’d found. I didn’t want to acknowledge the path you were going down. And I think I was the only one who would have understood it. I failed you, Emma.” 

 

“Like hell.” Emma yanks her hands from Regina’s, clenching them into fists as her heart protests the separation. “You didn’t fail me. You were the only person I could stand to be around. You were the only reason I _woke up_ some mornings. I’m not going to take responsibility for what’s been going on and then let you sweep it away from me. You tried to stop me.” 

 

“Not hard enough.”

 

“You stopped me from becoming the Dark One, didn’t you? You stopped me from hurting Zelena and even killing fucking Spencer.” She’s furious and frustrated and terrified. “You’ve been so disappointed with me that when Zelena took your place, I was _glad_. Because it was easier. Because she didn’t _care_ and I could do whatever the fuck I wanted and no one would stop me. And Regina…” She doesn’t know how to describe the state she’s been in for the past week, like a daze of movement-without-feeling, like she’d been numb and dead and only her anger had brought her to life. 

 

Instead she says, “You’re the only good place I have now,” and it sounds like defeat already. She isn’t supposed to give up but her heart hurts and it doesn’t feel up to fighting this battle. She’s already hurt Regina enough.

 

Regina shakes her head, smiling sadly. “I can’t be your good place when I don’t even know how good I am. Me…being like this is new. I don’t want to be so afraid of breaking us apart that I won’t be able to help you again.” She takes Emma’s defeat, sees it in her eyes, and she closes her own for a moment.

 

“Do you…” She’s a terrified little girl who knows only rejection for a moment, and she can’t stop the words from spilling out of her mouth. “I’d understand if you…if you wanted to hate me for a little while.” 

 

“Emma.” Regina stands finally, tugs her closer and kisses her properly for the first time in a week. She sinks into it, closing her eyes and opening her mouth and never so grateful that when their shoes are off, they’re just about the same height and they can stand like this forever. There are more kisses and assurances- _I’m not leaving you, I’ll do what I can, I understand, I understand, I understand-_ and then Regina’s forehead touching hers and a whispered promise, _I don’t know how to hate you anymore_ , and Emma holds tightly to her like she’s still her only anchor in this storm. 

 

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she murmurs finally.

 

“Go home, Emma.” Regina’s eyes glitter with something mournful and longing. “You have another home here, don’t you?” 

 

She laughs harshly, remembering Snow stock-still in Regina’s foyer. “They don’t want me there.” 

 

Regina kisses her again, quick and forceful, and Emma blinks up at her as she murmurs, “You might be surprised.” 

 

+

 

Emma only takes a few days' worth of clothes in the end, stuffed into one of Henry’s old backpacks with a box of pastries Regina had handed silently to her, and she walks past the guest room warily. “I don’t want her here.” 

 

“There’s nowhere else for her.” 

 

“There’s the crypt,” Emma mutters. “You have that snazzy secret room, right? It’s a hell of a lot better than prison.” 

 

Regina pats her hand and Henry squeezes her other one. “It’s okay, Ma,” he promises. “I’m not even allowed upstairs without Mom around until we’re sure she has no magic.”

 

“Trust me,” Regina murmurs, and Emma falls silent with a defeated huff.

 

“We’ll come by for… _dinner._ ” Regina says it like it’s pulling teeth, but then she leans forward and kisses Emma again, resting her hand against Emma’s chest, and Emma wonders if she knows what her nearness is doing to her heart. She must. Regina knows _something_ there that she isn’t sharing.

 

“I don’t know where I’ll be,” Emma says in response, and both Henry and Regina give her identical exasperated looks. “Fine. Bye.”

 

She goes to Granny’s first anyway, sees the woman hobbling around in the diner and backs away again, ashamed at the idea of even talking to her. 

 

No, she isn’t going to be able to just…rent a room and find a place. There’s her Bug, but she has the feeling that Regina won’t take kindly to her sleeping outside the house in it. 

 

There’s the station. It’s a little too close to David than she’d like right now, but he’s the lesser of two evils, and–

 

And the station is full, her former deputies all collected in the cells. All except one. “Shouldn’t you be in there?” 

 

“No complaints filed against me,” Shenzi says from behind Emma’s desk. “No reason to arrest.” She twirls a pen between her fingers. “Well, aside from detaining David when he tried to go after his wife last night, but when he remembered that, he also remembered who’d been filing all those other reports like a pro.” She preens a little and grins up to Emma with a toothy smile. “So he permanently deputized me instead.” 

 

“Deputized you.” Emma stares at her. “You were working for Zelena.” 

 

“So were you.” Shenzi twiddles her thumbs. “Funny how the law seems so unsatisfying when it isn’t working for you, hmm?” She cackles to herself and jots something down on a form from the pile in front of her. She’s doing _all_ the paperwork, Emma realizes suddenly, from back before even Pan’s curse, and Emma backs out of the room, grudgingly mollified. 

 

No cells. No room at Granny’s. No Bug. No Regina.

 

She drags her feet down the road to the loft, mentally preparing some kind of quick opening speech-  _I just need a little while, I’ll pay rent, I swear I’ll be out of your hair soon-_ and she shuffles her way up to the apartment. There’s the sound of a baby wailing from inside, Snow calling to David, and Emma reviews her words again, sounds them out and raps on the door with fabricated confidence.

 

Snow opens the door and Emma forgets everything she’d been about to say. Instead she manages, “Regina asked me to move out,” before her voice quavers dangerously and she’s afraid to speak again, to do anything but stand alone in the doorway of her mother’s apartment with her little knapsack of clothing and pastries and her head down. 

 

Snow doesn’t hesitate before she’s reaching out for Emma and wrapping her arms around her and Emma can’t stifle the choking sobs anymore. 


	15. Chapter 15

**xxvii. palpitation**

“Your magic is gone,” Regina says when they’re seated on the couches downstairs. Zelena glares at her. “Which…I’m sure you were already aware of.” 

 

“I’m mentally eviscerating you right now,” Zelena mutters. “It isn't quite as satisfying as the real thing.”

 

Regina says dubiously, “Have you ever even eviscerated anyone? Or did you just turn anyone you didn’t like into monkeys?” Zelena scowls. Which is answer enough. “For a member of Mother’s family, you're surprisingly tame.” The scowl deepens.

 

Regina sighs. “As I was saying, your magic seems to be gone for the time being. From what I’ve been able to glean–“ from a furious Rumple, who’d demanded vengeance and she’d snapped back threats and reminders of what else he’d taken from her. Not that Zelena is anywhere near _hers_. She’s as sulky as Henry had been at ten when he’d hated her and Regina’s patience had never been all that strong even with him. But Regina had checked on the wards around Zelena’s room anyway until she’d been satisfied that they’d keep Rumple out and now Zelena is sitting in her living room with a chip on her shoulder. “Your magic is trapped in your focusing brooch. So you’re harmless to us.”

 

“Lovely. May I go back to my room now, or is the small talk required as well for my rehabilitation?” Zelena offers her a tight-lipped smile, hostile and annoyed. She rises when there’s no answer and turns to the staircase, and she’s halfway out of the room when Regina speaks again, throwing caution to hell.

 

“Mother would have had you trussed up and floating in midair for that kind of insolence,” she says casually, and Zelena stops.

 

“Mother prepared you for greatness,” she retorts. “And now you’re living this dreadfully inane existence in this meaningless little village and I’m sure you’re an even greater disappointment than I would ever have been.” She bites out the words like she _knows_ , somehow she knows that they’ll grasp onto Regina and scar like hot iron.

 

“Greater disappointment than you?” she shoots back, patience leaving her again. “You, living in my house, defeated and weak? What are you?” 

 

Zelena laughs unpleasantly. “You know, the man who raised me–“ 

 

“Your father.” 

 

“ _The man who raised me_ thought I was a monster because of my magic. But I suppose I’m not even that anymore.” She tilts her head, smiles self-deprecatingly, and Regina’s breath is momentarily stolen at the loneliness in her eyes.

 

It’s like looking into a mirror every time, seeing herself in this sister she’d never known. Seeing pain and defiance that she recognizes so well and had only barely broken free of, seeing a connection there that Zelena refuses to acknowledge even though Regina is certain she yearns for it just as urgently as Regina herself does.

 

She says, “Funny,” and Zelena’s head snaps up, startled. “I thought my mother was a monster for the same reason.” 

 

“And she kept _you_.” Zelena’s tone is scathing but she can’t quite hide the sudden uncertainty that tempers it. They connect again and this time Zelena freezes, flushing at something she must see within Regina’s gaze. “So she could marry a prince after I botched that up for her the first time.” 

 

Regina frowns. “The first time? How do you…how _were_ you abandoned? I never knew you existed until now.” 

 

Zelena sits back down, the forced smile on her face not quite enough to conceal her enjoyment at Regina’s sudden curiosity. “I have- had powerful friends. I knew everything about _you_.” She preens and begins a story about Mother that Regina had never known, a false prince and an unwanted pregnancy and a true prince who’d fallen in love with her.

 

“The prince would have been my father,” Zelena says, wistful. She’s animated as she speaks now, still guarded but not as prickly anymore, and Regina’s guard is dropping until Zelena says, “I could have been the daughter of Queen Cora and King Leopold and instead I grew up like–“ 

 

The air leaves Regina’s lungs with force as though she’d punctured them and she doubles over, presses her arms to her stomach and folds her body over her arms and breathes in, pushes away years of memories as they fly back-back-back and her story becomes ever more perverse. She’s lightheaded and dizzy and nausea is rising and there’s an urgent demand, “Regina! What the hell is wrong with you? Regina!”

 

She lifts her head, banishing away the new memories and sitting straight again, recapturing the poise that had been inculcated into her her entire life. _For that. For…_ Zelena is staring at her, on edge and angry and borderline concerned, and she breathes in and forces the smile. “Well, if Mother had kept you, maybe you’d have just been Queen Zelena to his King Leopold.” Zelena sucks in a breath, brow furrowing as though she’s certain she’s being mocked, and Regina says, “You didn’t know _everything_ about me, did you?” 

 

“Mother…the king you married…” Zelena’s lips part, then snap shut. “No. That’s impossible. He could have been our _father_.” 

 

“The age difference isn’t uncommon in the Enchanted Forest,” Regina allows, heart pounding with the memories of grief and terror- of the king, of a future in that castle, yes, but of Mother most of all. “Young girls are married off to ancient nobles for the promise of their sons inheriting their titles. It’s not the norm, but not unheard of. Mother was thrilled that I would have the chance to marry a king. She told me…” _Because this is your happy ending_. 

 

She’d called Henry her happy ending the day before, had seen Emma’s bright eyes and heard her own pronouncement with warmth curling in her belly and Mother would have had to be heartless to see happiness in power when there’s _love_. When there are second changes and bright futures of joy and simplicity and the life she’d craved before Daniel had lain dead before her. 

 

And now Zelena opposite her, still stricken, struggling for the contemptuous arrogance she wraps around herself as a shield. “I really am done believing in Mother’s happy endings,” Regina murmurs.

 

“But here you…” Zelena’s voice trails off, bare of the condescension Regina had expected. Instead there’s curiosity that’s almost childlike, the first stirrings of peace between them. “What do you have here?” 

 

“Love, Zelena. I have my son…I have a family.” She shrugs her shoulders. It’s an Emma gesture and she feels more secure when she mimics it, a tiny piece of Emma still hers.

 

“I told her that family was really important to you,” Henry says from the foyer, and he’s smiling at both of them, wary but not horrified at Zelena in their living room. Behind him, Emma looks far less amused, her eyes boring into Zelena with hostility. “Hi.” 

 

“Hi?” Zelena echoes, pulling too hard on the end of the word so it emerges a question. “Keep your knickers on, Emma.I don’t have my magic anymore.” The scorn is back in full force when she sneers at the blonde. “You’re the only ticking time bomb in this room.”

 

Emma starts forward, eyes narrowing dangerously, and Regina hastily steps up to greet her. “Emma,” she says, taking her hands. The other woman’s heart is still throbbing, latching onto Regina’s magic as a power source the moment they make contact. “We’re…” 

 

“Making nice to the psychopath so she doesn’t kill you in your sleep?” 

 

Zelena’s lip curls but she remains silent, hands twitching in familiar frustration. Regina knows the sensation, calling magic to yourself and finding nothing there, like kicking at rocks and reaching only air. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says, stroking Emma’s hands as she turns away from Zelena. 

 

Dinner last night had been a tense affair at the Charmings. Emma had been dully quiet beside her, her ankle hooked over Regina’s, and she’d barely eaten while Snow’s voice had gotten higher and higher with every moment of tense silence. Henry- sweet, perceptive Henry- had broken in midway through the meal to interrogate them on the missing year and they’d all jumped gladly into that distraction. 

 

Emma had followed them out the door and kissed Regina on the stairs when Henry had run ahead to the car, Regina flattened against the wall and Emma needy and her hands under Regina’s dress- _let me feel you please let me please_ \- and then she’d jerked away abruptly when Regina had come and fled back to the apartment. And Regina hadn’t seen her again until now. “How’s…?” 

 

“Snow?” Emma finishes, glancing at Henry. He rolls his eyes and scoots around them to the couch where Regina had been sitting, pretending to be interested in his backpack while he sneaks peeks at Zelena and she sneaks them right back at him. “Oh, you know. It’s fine. We hugged it out when I got there and everything’s better now.” She grins humorlessly. “Then she offered me cocoa after you left and I drank it and went to sleep at eight PM to the dulcet tones of Baelfire’s screams. _Then_ Henry came to work today to tell me that you were stalking me in your magic mirror and-“ She lifts her fingers to form air quotes. “'Could I please come back here before Mom got any creepier.’”

 

_Traitor_. Regina gives Henry a dark look and he smirks and buries his head back in his math book. Zelena hides a smirk of her own behind her hand. “I wasn’t _stalking_ you. I was just…making sure you’d made it home all right.” 

 

“Right.” But Emma is grinning up at her and her gaze is uncertain but almost…relieved, as though she hadn’t been sure she’d been wanted until then. Regina shivers beneath it and Emma bumps against her as she heads into the living room. “So…magic lessons again?” 

 

“Are you sure you want to do those with–“ 

 

“ _Yes_ , Regina.” Emma narrows her eyes at her. “And don’t tell me that you failed me there and that crap. You were a good teacher.” 

 

“Oh, I know.” She quirks an eyebrow. “I don’t think there’s anyone else here who _can_ teach you, anyway.” And she’s determined to make up her negligence until now to Emma, be as careful as she can and more alert for Emma’s sake. “I meant if you wanted to do them with company, since too many of those ended with you…ah. Losing control.” 

 

“Oh!” Emma says, cheeks reddening, and Regina had meant the occasional blasts of accidental magic but now she’s instead remembering the day after Neal’s wake and their first magic lesson here, remembering Emma focusing on levitating a vase and Regina bringing out her own magic to demonstrate. Their magic had met and Emma had looked up with lidded eyes and seen Regina staring at her and then suddenly she’d been backed against a wall, being kissed breathless by a woman she’d despised a year before.

 

Henry says, “ _Stop_ that. Stop looking at each other like that. We’re in the room, too.” 

 

“It’s revolting,” Zelena agrees. 

 

“No one is making you stay here,” Emma says sharply. “Why is she out of her room at all?” She sets her jaw stubbornly. “Let’s do it here. I don’t care who else is in here.”

 

Henry sighs heavily and when Emma stomps over, he switches couches, settling down beside Zelena. Zelena stares at Henry. Henry stares back. Zelena looks befuddled at the whole exchange. 

 

Regina joins Emma on the other couch, taking her hands again. Magic flows easily between them, as natural as it’s been since the day Emma had seized her arm and brought a magic hat to life. “Teach me,” Emma says, determined. “How do I stop myself from losing control?” 

 

_Stop getting angry_ doesn’t work, Regina knows that from experience. “Do you remember when I absorbed that death curse in the well? When you and Snow came back from the Enchanted Forest?” 

 

“I do.” Emma’s squinting at her with dawning suspicion and Regina sighs irritably. 

 

“Stop that. I didn’t do it for _you_. Henry asked me to.” 

 

“Uh-huh.” 

 

“Emma, I _hated_ you. I wasn’t saving your life out of warm fuzzies.” 

 

Emma’s eyes dance. “Sure you weren’t just…thinking about my nightstick?” 

 

“What is this preoccupation with your nightstick?” Henry is scrawling homework answers in his notebook, thankfully oblivious. Zelena is hiding her mouth with her hand again. Regina lowers her voice. “If you have some internalized obsession with phallic symbols, there are far more hygienic–“ She pauses with effort. “The death curse.” 

 

“The one when you saved my life.” Emma ducks under her glare. “Right.” 

 

She sighs heavily, the smile still creeping up onto her face beneath her frown. “The magic in that curse was toxic, and I had to push it all out of me at once. I want you to focus on something that makes you feel…helpless. Angry. Any of the emotions that make your magic take control of you.” She pretends not to notice the way that Emma’s eyes shift to zero in on Zelena as a blue glow appears around her hands. “Now don’t concentrate on the magic. _Stop that_ ,” she orders as Emma’s eyes immediately turn to her hands.

 

Emma looks back at Zelena. Her magic flares up more. Regina says, “Focus on your emotions. How are you feeling?” 

 

“Furious,” Emma says, eyes drifting shut.

 

“How else?” 

 

Her eyes open again on Regina and she sounds strained when she says, “Betrayed?” 

 

_Oh_. Regina’s heart thumps drumbeats against her ribcage and Emma looks down. “Your…your emotions power your magic. It’s why you’re so susceptible to them when you’re already using it. And the more you feel, the harder it’s going to be to control them. You can try focusing on positive emotions, on love and joy and the like, but that doesn’t work as well when your primary objective is punching someone in the face.” 

 

“So what do I do? Do I get to punch them in the face?”

 

“No, you idiot,” she says fondly. “You take a breath. You step back. I put on a smile after that curse and focused on Henry, on you, on everything around me instead of what was going on inside of me and I was able to hold off until I got home to release it. No explosions, nothing set on fire, just the magic dying. You’ve been talking to me. Try imagining that magic in your hands dissolving into the air.” 

 

Emma does, shaking her head as it fades away. “So that’s your big trick? Counting to ten? How do I stop it from coming at all?” 

 

“Practice?” She sees Emma scowling at her and sighs. “There’s no easy fix for controlling your magic. Just a lot of gradual training until you’re doing all of this instinctively.” 

 

“I counted by fours,” Zelena says suddenly. They both turn. She presses her lips together and straightens. “When I would use magic around my…around the man who raised me. I counted by fours until the magic stopped coming.”

 

Emma’s lip curls. “Forgive me if I don’t take the advice of the psychopath who’s been terrorizing everyone I love for the past few months.” 

 

Regina is silent, trapped between the sister who’d just begun to open up and _Emma, Emma_ , who feels betrayed and has lost so much because of Zelena, and Henry catches her eye and she doesn’t know how to respond. Zelena snaps, “You don’t seem to have a problem with the Evil Queen, do you?” 

 

She stalks out of the room and up the stairs in a dignified kind of stomp, her steps ringing through the whole floor as she returns to her room. Emma glares at Regina as though she’s daring her to say something in response, but it’s Henry who speaks up. “Ma…” He shrugs when she stares at him, wild and lost. “Doesn’t she get a second chance, too?” 

 

“Does she have to do it here?” Emma demands. “Can’t she have her second chance in a jail cell far away from…” She sags. “I don’t know why you’d _want_ her around, Regina. Aren’t you supposed to be the queen of holding grudges?”

 

“I’ve found that it’s easier to hold grudges when the subject of your grudge has everything. Zelena is…” She turns her hands over, holds them out palms-up, and finds that she still can’t explain it.

 

“Family?” Emma guesses. “Because you shared a mom? She doesn’t have to be a sister.” 

 

Her eyes are stubborn and Henry is wearing the same face right now, like he’s about to start a fight with Emma on Zelena’s behalf- why, she can’t imagine, except that he’d said over the breakfast table, _I think she could be okay if we’re okay around her_ , and he somehow understands how she feels without her having to express it. And she bursts out, “She’s _us_ , Emma. She’s me.” 

 

“Regina–“ 

 

“She’s…she’s been alone with her bitterness for a long time. And I know what that does to people. What it did to me. You know it too, don’t you?” Emma slumps, her head dropping in acquiescence, and Regina reaches a hand to her knee. “I can’t leave her alone. I’ve been alone. I’ve had a castle to myself and all it made me do was hate more. And she’s…” Her throat hurts and Emma’s face hurts when it won’t meet hers and she’s trying to do the right thing. She’s trying to follow instincts she’d rebuilt from scratch. “I don’t want to see any more casualties of my mother’s.” 

 

Emma is still silent and Regina thinks of Zelena who’d never done more than turn people into monkeys. Zelena who’d helped orchestrate Neal’s death and sent Walsh to make Emma fall in love and who’d nearly taken Henry from them both. Zelena who’d been taunting Emma and meddling with her mind and… “You fought for me, Emma. You…you campaigned for a second chance for me. You had faith in me when the world had given up on me.” After the curse, in Neverland, even after Archie’s apparent murder until she’d been faced with incontrovertible evidence.

 

“Yeah, but I…” Emma glances at Henry. “We had Henry. And you know now that I had…” _Feelings for you_ , she doesn’t say, but Regina hears it nonetheless. 

 

Regina's heart still jackhammers against her ribs and she manages, “If you want me to make a choice, I’ll choose you. I’ll send her to my crypt and let her live underground there. I don’t want you to feel so betrayed by me. Especially not now.” She surrenders in a moment, mourns what could have been and casts it aside and waits for Emma’s judgment. 

 

But Emma is gaping at her, shaking her head, and she’s still so impossibly _Emma_ , so empathetic at the most unexpected times, and there’s something shining in her eyes that steals Regina’s breath away. “You’re already…you’re already going to love her aren’t you?”

 

“I don’t…” She doesn’t know. She barely knows Zelena at all except that she looks trapped all the time and Regina dreads prisons and what they can do to scared little girls who don’t believe they’ll ever have anything more. Except that Zelena had covered her mouth and smiled and she sits straight when she feels threatened and that her eyes are always inquisitive when they aren’t angry.

 

Emma’s shoulders rise and then fall as though they’ve been loaded with new weight and her hands are curling and uncurling and her magic is barely visible, ghosting along the edges of her skin. Regina takes a hand in hers, lifts it to her lips and kisses Emma’s palm, and Emma admits in a low tone, “Ninety-two.” 

 

“What?” 

 

“I counted by fours.” She scoots forward on the couch and Regina leans against her, her head nestling against Emma’s shoulder and her body curled into her with Emma’s arm around her waist like she’s been made to fit her. Emma presses a kiss into her hair. “I hate her. I really do.”

 

“No one would blame you for that.”

 

“I think this is probably the worst idea you’ve ever had. And you once tried to curse me into eternal  sleep with a turnover.” 

 

“I thought that was a good idea. Your greatest weakness is food.”

 

“Not my _greatest_.” Emma’s fingers trace letters of words unspoken into her arm, trailing down to the crook of her elbow. “I’m also a big fan of alcohol.” 

 

“Mm. And…nightsticks?”

 

“Now who’s obsessing?” Emma grins belligerently, and it lasts a long moment before her eyes drift back to the stairs and her smile vanishes.

 

And it would be so easy to take this, to surrender to a peace where Henry is curled up on one couch and they’re on the other and there are no more demons left to conquer. To hide away from darkness by living only in the light, and Emma can never go back to her mother and Regina can forget about the possibilities that lie upstairs.

 

Haven’t they earned some rest by now? Even if she’s to spend the rest of her life doing penance for her sins, hasn’t Emma? 

 

_No._ Emma struggles because she refuses rest, because she doesn’t give up. And she’d been overwhelmed and lost herself but someday soon she’s going to start fighting again and Regina can’t bear the thought of Emma so constrained to their tiny little corner of the universe when she can seek the world instead. And Regina wants…

 

“I have to try, Emma.” She has to because Zelena is still a child in so many ways- in all the ways that Emma herself is, wary of a world that’s burned her and quick to burst into flames- and there’s still promise in her smile. “I have to.” 

 

Emma says nothing in response, but her heart tugs magic from Regina in uneven beats.

 

* * *

**xxviii. reconciliation**

“Good to see you, Emma,” Archie is smiling at her from down the sidewalk, Pongo tugging at his leash to reach Henry, and Emma smiles back automatically. “How have you been?” 

 

“I’ve…” She blinks at him. “I’ve been okay.” She’d scheduled an appointment with him and had skipped out on it to work late at the station, but he looks at her with compassion and understanding and absolutely no resentment. 

 

Well. It is Archie. 

 

Henry pulls ahead and she follows him, nodding to Doc as he greets her pleasantly and forgetting even to smile when Granny waves at her from just outside the diner. It’s a marked difference from the last time she’d ventured out into town, enduring suspicious glares and wary glances, and she doesn’t understand at all.

 

Snow had fed them her story, she’s sure, but she can’t imagine why they would all _accept_ it, not after the havoc she’d wreaked in town. She can’t imagine that she could have let so many people get hurt and never have to pay any consequences for it. 

 

“They need a hero, Ma,” Henry says, reading the disbelief on her face. “They want to believe in you. So they trust you. You’re still our hero.” He leads the way into the diner and she sits heavily, managing a smile at Ruby when she comes to their table.

 

“How have you been?” Ruby asks, setting down the cocoa before they’d even ordered it.

 

“I’m…I’m fine.” She clears her throat. “Sorry I’ve been so…away lately.” 

 

“You’ve been busy,” Ruby says sympathetically. “Zelena really did a number on you, huh?” She lowers her voice. “I can’t believe that Regina’s really letting her stay in her house. There are some people worried that she’s falling back to old habits.” She stares significantly at Emma, warning conveyed, and Emma sighs.

 

“You know that’s bullcrap, right?” 

 

“ _I_ know. But keep an eye out for her, okay?” Ruby straightens and returns to the counter, and Emma buries her face in her cocoa.

 

This is the status quo, the one the town eternally clings to. The savior is good, the queen is evil, and as long as they can rewrite the stories to put them into the proper roles, the story remains the same. Emma becomes a victim. Regina’s light magic victory becomes a sign of corruption. The narrative is a crock, the people are blind, and Emma could conceivably do anything with no consequence.

 

It’s tempting. It’s so tempting, when even Henry is adamant that she’s still a hero. She can fall back into the habits that had gotten her into this mess, force Regina’s hand with Zelena, skip more appointments with Archie and leave Snow’s apartment for good. She doesn’t have to make anything right again when there’s nobody expecting it of her.

 

She shakes her head, clearing her thoughts of that. “How was your night?” She’d left Regina’s after dinner, wandered around town for an hour, and then slid into bed with no more than a quick nod to her parents. It’s getting easier to be a stranger in her own home as the days go by.

 

Henry shrugs. “It was okay. Zelena came downstairs and I taught her how to play Bananagrams. She’s fast but she makes up words.” 

 

“Why are you so okay with her?” Emma blurts out, then winces. She isn’t supposed to be causing more trouble in their shaky little family. Definitely not anything that might cause friction between Henry and Regina, and not after Regina and Henry both had been so adamant that Zelena deserves a second chance.

 

But Henry stares at her like she’s lost her mind. “Are you nuts? She _poisoned_ Mom. And I was under the crypt with you, remember? I know the stuff she said to you. How could I be okay with her?”

 

“But you…” He’d sat next to Zelena, bold and unafraid, and he’d treated her like family. “Why…” 

 

Henry shrugs, looking down. “She’s important to Mom. And Mom needs someone who’s…” He sips at his cocoa. “She has you and Gram and Gramps and me, but she doesn’t really have anyone who’s just hers.” 

 

“We’re hers.” 

 

“But we’re also each other’s, right?” Henry shrugs again, self-conscious. “I don’t know. I think it’s good for Mom to get to help someone like her. And Zelena’s not that bad.”

 

He’s staring into his cocoa still, looking guilty at even that last admission, and she’s struck by the fact that he’s only _twelve_. He’s always determined to take care of both of them and he’s been doing nothing but that lately and he’s insightful and sensitive and just twelve years old. “Henry,” she murmurs. 

 

He looks up and she isn’t good with feelings in the same way that Regina is. She can’t just…open up and explain the love that overwhelms her at what a good kid they’ve gotten. She can nudge him with her knee under the table and smile at him and hope that he understands it, though, and Henry flushes and a little grin pokes at the edges of his lips.

 

“Last year feels kind of like a dream, doesn’t it?” he says. “I’m forgetting a lot of the stuff from us before it, but we still had last year. Like a dream.”

 

She nods slowly. “But it was nice.” They hadn’t known what they’d been missing, hadn’t been aware of what emptiness had remained under the veil, and they’d built a home with no foundation and loved it until it had sunk into the ground. 

 

Henry brightens. “Yeah! It was awesome. New York was awesome. The pizza was…awesome.” He talks about it like it had been a vacation away from home instead of a new life. She’s glad for him. She wishes she could feel the same.

 

“It really was,” she says wistfully, thinking about pizza instead. Her eyes narrow. “Don’t you dare tell your mother about Pizza Week. She’ll kill me.”

 

Henry pouts. “I was just thinking we could get her to do it with us! It was nutritious. There were mushrooms on Tuesday _and_ Friday!” 

 

_“_ She. Will. Kill. Me. _”_ She stands up. “C’mon. You’re going to be late for school.” 

 

“Fine. Bye, Ma.” He pauses halfway through slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Hey, Ma? Is it okay that I’ve been calling you that?” 

 

It hadn’t been for a long time, another sign of rejection from an angry boy, but she finds now that it’s…settled. That Regina is Mom now and she’s Ma and nothing else seems more natural than that. “I love you, kid,” she says in response, and gives him a little shove toward the door.

 

When he leaves, she thinks again of _no consequences_ and makes her way toward the hospital, asking for directions before she climbs up the stairs to a glass-encased room she remembers well. Henry had _died_ on that hospital bed, died and come back to life with a kiss, and now she’d put someone else onto it.

 

She hesitates outside the door as the Merry Man sitting beside the bed looks up and sees her. His eyes darken.

 

She steels herself, pulls open the door, walks inside. Comes face-to-arrow with the sentry's bow. “Get out.” 

 

“I’m better at healing magic than Regina is,” she says, pushing the arrow aside. “Though I’d understand if you didn’t want to trust me.” 

 

He hesitates, glaring at her with suspicion, and she meets his eyes evenly. “I’m staying here.” 

 

“That’s fine.” She looks down at Robin Hood for the first time, sees bubbled skin pockmarked with burns, and she’s nauseous at what she’d done. Now that she has distance, she can see so clearly how much she’d extrapolated to get them to this place. She’d been desperate that he be _gone_ , that he be _wrong,_ that this man who Regina could have loved be more unlovable than she’d…

 

Than she’d thought herself to be.

 

She grits her teeth, more than done with this new facing-her-feelings thing, and places a hand against a burn mark in Robin’s cheek. Her magic flows, biting at the open wound at her heart as it moves through her, and she pushes aside her resentments and focuses on healing.

 

She stands over him for hours, all but oblivious to the changing of the guard, to whispers from one man to the next and distrustful looks from both and Whale making snide comments about magic behind her. All she sees is burn after burn that she’d caused, some down to the bone, and her limitless magic finally feels like a gift and keeps her standing even when her heart is in agony and her feet are exhausted. 

 

When she’s finished, she doesn’t stop to look at her handiwork. She focuses hard on her bed in the loft and returns there in a puff of blue energy, eyes shut before she can contemplate changing into pajamas or anything else about what she’d just spent the day doing.

 

_No consequences._ None except harm to people she protects by instinct, out of duty and love and determination. And it can’t be who she is anymore.

 

+

 

For a moment when she awakens, she’s lost in a memory, a moment that had never happened. There’s a baby crying and she thinks sleepily, _Henry_ , and stumbles down the stairs to the crib before she sees her parents asleep a few feet from the squalling child.

 

Baelfire is letting out mewling wails, growing in volume every time he breathes out, and she hastens to the crib and reaches for him on automatic, cradling him in her arms. “Hey, little guy,” she murmurs, wrapping his blanket back around him.

 

He’s a week old. Even in her false memories, she’d only had staggered visits with Henry in prison at that age. She’s never curled up on the couch with a newborn like this, humming an old tune to him until he quiets, eyes closing again. And he’s tiny and fragile and so warm, nestled against her and absolutely trusting and she can feel her scarred heart burn at the emotion it brings.

 

She rocks him for long minutes until his eyes open again, lightly focusing on her face, and he gurgles. “Hi,” she says again, stroking his cheek with her thumb. “I’m…I’m your big sister. I know we haven’t really met before.” He opens his mouth and she absentmindedly dips a finger into it for him to suck. “I’ve been…preoccupied.”

 

“I’m sure he’d understand,” says a voice just in front of them, and Emma jolts. Snow stands over them, two mugs of cocoa in her hands. “I’m sorry I startled you.” Snow sets Emma’s mug down on the coffee table and takes her own to the seat next to the couch. “You were so absorbed in Baelfire, I didn’t want to interrupt.” 

 

“It’s fine.” Snow doesn’t ask for the baby. Emma should probably hand him over anyway and flee back into her room, but his eyes are still open and he’s watching her and it’s impossible to tear her eyes away.

 

Then Snow asks, “How are you feeling?” and Emma regrets sticking around.

 

“I’m fine. Just…tired.” 

 

Snow nods. “Of course. I heard what you did for Robin Hood.”

 

“After what I did _to_ him. You heard about that part, too, right?”

 

Her mother twitches. “Emma…” 

 

“Please tell me you’re not pretending like the rest of this town.” Snow had been down in the crypt with her, had gotten the reports and lost faith in her when the others had begun to doubt. Snow _must_ know. She can’t be burying her head in the sand, too. 

 

“No,” Snow says, her voice strained. “I know what happened. Regina called me from the woods to summon an ambulance because she didn’t think that the dispatcher would send one for her. I saw Robin before the Blue Fairy healed most of the damage.” 

 

Emma presses her lips together and stares down at Baelfire. “Good.” 

 

Snow says, “I don’t know why–“ and then stops. 

 

Emma feels the tension ratcheting up around them, higher and higher with words unsaid, and she’s so tired of pretending all the time when Snow _knows_. Snow’s seen all of this and Snow has heard her snapping at her and Snow’s just going to continue to pretend they’re okay when there’s no way they’re ever going to be again. “Why I hurt him?” she demands. “Why I hurt myself? Why I turned this town into some kind of police state and terrorized everyone? Why we don’t talk to each other anymore? Which one is it, Snow?” 

 

She sees the other woman reel, curiously only at that last moment when she’d called her _Snow_. Snow sits forward again, hands creeping up to clutch at the quilt she’d draped over herself. “Why you want me to think the worst of you,” she murmurs. “I was in that crypt. I heard what Zelena said.”

 

“It was true. All of it.” Emma’s voice stays low, mindful of Baelfire drifting off again on her lap. “I don’t know how you’ve twisted it to handle me being–“ 

 

“She called you a _monster_ ,” Snow says, visibly horrified. “And you think it’s true?” She buries her face in her hands. Emma watches, stone-faced. “Emma…” 

 

“I killed someone.” She hadn’t wanted to move Baelfire but suddenly he looks so tiny again and her hands are glowing with magic. She focuses instead on his little chin- _their_ chin, hers and Snow’s, _god_ \- and the way his lips part like a little smile reflex and her magic doesn’t dissipate but it doesn’t seem to be hurting him, either. “You gave me excuses and I took them but I killed him because he…because he broke my heart and tricked me and I was angry and humiliated. It was never about Henry, no matter how much I try to tell myself it was. It was about _me_. It was always about me.” 

 

Snow doesn’t move, just watches her with wide eyes, and she dares to continue. “I was playing god with the people in town, deciding what was best for everyone when it suited me. I sent the dwarves on a suicidal mission to one-up Zelena. I wiped Henry’s memories so he wouldn’t want to stay in town. I screwed with Robin Hood’s mind a long time before I ever tried to kill him and I convinced myself that he deserved the treatment I’d given Spencer and Barker and that Keith asshole so I could get away with it. Me. I did that. Not Zelena. And not because of Zelena.” She’s pouring out a confessional, things she hasn’t even told Regina, and Snow is sitting stiffly as though she’s afraid to flinch. “So yeah, I’d say I was a monster.” 

 

Snow inhales, long and slow, cautious when she looks at Emma as though she’s afraid she’s going to spook her. “You’ve made mistakes,” she allows.

 

Emma laughs bitterly. “Mistakes? That’s what you’re going to call it? Is that the easiest way to deal with it?” 

 

“Yes!” Snow snaps. “Yes, it is. What do you want me to do, write you off forever?” Her eyes widen, her voice getting shriller with every breath she heaves. “You do, don’t you? Am I that unbearable a mother?”

 

Bae twitches and Emma cradles him closer. “Can we not– do this now?” 

 

“Sure,” Snow says, smile back on her face like a pained grimace, and Emma stands with relief, turning back to the crib. “We can just hug it out and pretend it’s all okay until the next time it gets to be too much,” she finishes, and Emma stops in place.

 

“Snow…” 

 

“Stop it.” Emma turns and Snow is clenching her quilt so tightly that her knuckles are turning white. “Stop calling me that.” 

 

“It’s your name!” 

 

“Not to you!” It emerges as a pained shriek and Baelfire begins to cry again, pitiful little wails that hurt Emma’s heart as much as any magical attack. She turns him to press him against her shoulder, rocking with him as Snow claps a hand to her mouth and sinks back into the cushions. “Emma, I’m sorry.” 

 

“Not now, Snow.”

 

It sounds like Snow's grinding her teeth together, words emerging almost painfully. “When, then?” She opens her mouth with some effort. “Regina says…Regina tells me to listen to you. That that’s how I fix this.” Emma’s eyebrows shoot up at the image of Regina offering Snow parenting advice- about _her_ , do they also swap recipes and chat about their sex lives because Emma’s pretty sure that Regina would get some sadistic pleasure out of that one- and she hesitates again as Snow continues. “But you won’t even talk to me anymore. You’d rather be an orphan than have me as your mother,” she accuses, face flushed with emotions Emma can only guess at, and she sighs and sits down. 

 

“Of course I don’t want…” She can feel the lie rising again and rebels. “Oh, fuck it. I’m the one who’d rather be an orphan? You didn’t even _know_ about me. I spent twenty-eight years dreaming about you and you knew I was gone for thirty seconds before the curse came. So don’t you dare tell _me_ what I want.” 

 

Snow watches her, red-faced and silent, and she can’t stand the quiet anymore and holds Baelfire tight as she lurches on. “You told me. In Neverland you told me you weren’t going to make me feel like that, remember? And then ten seconds in a truth cave and you launched into an ‘Oh, Emma’s so wonderful and shit but I never got to change her diapers so I guess your dad and I can just live in Neverland together and raise forest babies.’” Snow is shaking her head and Emma feels tears threatening to emerge and _fuck this, fuck this all_. “How long did it take you to get started on a replacement baby in the Enchanted Forest? Did you wave goodbye to me and then get on with life? With someone more convenient? With someone _easier_?” 

 

Snow cries before she does and she’s savagely glad about it even as the tears cloud her vision and begin to spill. “I spent my whole childhood being sent back from new homes because I was too old, too _difficult_. No one wants a six-year-old with abandonment issues or a bitter teenager. No one wants a thirty-year-old who isn’t the picture-perfect savior.”

 

“I wanted you! Of course I want you!” Snow shakes her head, eyes frantic and bewildered. “I wanted you when I didn’t even know who you were, Emma. I used to wonder…sometimes I’d believe Henry’s stories just because it meant we were _family_. Don’t you know how much I love you?”

 

Snow is expectant and Emma just wants to hide, to shout her piece and then run away where she never has to hear a retort. “I know you love everyone. And I’m a part of _everyone_ , but…”

 

“No. Not a part of everyone.” Snow sinks deeper into the couch. “You’re so much more than that. And you’ve decided that it’s because you’re the savior, but I don’t…” She smiles through her tears, pleading with Emma even now, and Emma’s arms tremble around Baelfire. Her magic is still there and Regina’s advice hasn’t worked at all because now her whole arm is glowing with it and Snow doesn’t seem to care. “I don’t need that from you. I love the Evil Queen, haven’t you noticed? You never needed to be the savior for me to be proud of you. You only needed to be Emma.” 

 

She shrugs helplessly. “I saw you last year, too. Wearing my clothes. Going along with every decision I made even when you didn’t agree and being so quiet about what you wanted. It took Henry in danger before you stopped trying to be someone _else_. Emma, why?” 

 

She thinks about magic beans and ogres and Regina in an interrogation room at the station. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I just…” Her voice cracks. “I wanted to be what you wanted.”

 

Emma tightens her grip on Bae and he snuffles against her neck. Snow watches them, shaking her head. “I had no choice in the Echo Cave. What I said…it never meant I didn’t want _you_. But it was selfish and cruel and I did it all wrong, Emma. I did it so wrong. I lost you the moment you knew that I was your mother.” Her eyes still shine with tears and she says between sniffles. “I _knew_. I knew you wanted Mary Margaret. I thought if we…if there was another baby, we could go back to being friends again.” She looks drawn and small against the couch suddenly, curled up and white-faced and so unthreatening in her penitence that Emma wants to protect her and lash out at the same time. “I wanted it all. I was so selfish,” she whispers again.

 

Baelfire has quieted again and Emma returns him to his crib, careful not to rouse David in the process. He closes his eyes and looks so much like Henry that her throat closes up and she can’t speak for a moment. “You’re allowed to be selfish,” she says finally, making her way back to the couch. “It’d just be nice if you…if you _acknowledged_ it sometimes.” 

 

Snow starts in a high voice, “I didn’t–“ and Bae shifts in his crib, feet kicking their way out of his swaddle. By silent agreement, they file upstairs, Emma settling down on the floor opposite her bed  and Snow sitting down on it. Snow begins again in a lower tone. “I didn’t just _get on with my life_ in the Enchanted Forest after you were taken from us again. I was heartbroken. And there were wicked witches and a castle to retake and new threats every day and people missed Storybrooke so much. And they looked to me to be the one to give them what they needed.” 

 

“A new heir?” Now she’s being flippant, and Snow looks pained about it. She ducks her head and forces the bitterness to remain at bay.

 

“Hope,” Snow corrects her. “They needed hope. And I’ve been their symbol of it and I can’t falter in that, Emma. Regina tried to pull out her heart an hour into our return and I _understood_. I know how tempting it is to give up. And I know that I can’t do that.” 

 

“No one…” Her voice is getting scratchy again and this whole argument feels useless when Snow is so firm about it. “No one expects you not to falter, Snow. You can be weak sometimes. You can mourn. You can be afraid.” 

 

Snow leans forward, eyes glinting with sudden life. “Why should I? You don’t.” Emma blinks up at her. Snow almost smiles. “You grouch around a lot but it doesn’t mean you aren’t trying just as hard to be strong. We’re not so different, you and I. We just couch it in our own ways.” 

 

Snow couches it in hope and happiness and all the optimism she’d gotten as a spoiled princess and Emma locks it deep inside so it can only hurt herself because she’d only ever had herself to hurt. She feels her magic rising again, back before she’d noticed that it had dissipated. “Yeah, and it wrecked me. What do you think has been going on?” 

 

Snow says, “Tell me,” and she scoots over on the bed, lies down against the far side of it like they’re still Mary Margaret and Emma and they’re going to lie awake talking about boys all night. And Emma- still longing, no matter how often she’d struggled to push her away- climbs into the bed and rolls over to face her.

 

“My magic,” she admits, and Snow reaches through the glowing sphere of energy without a second thought to hold onto her hand. “It’s tougher to keep things bottled up when you turn into a human firefly every time you can’t contain it. And it…it makes it harder to hide from bad feelings. And easier to act on them. That’s what happens when you pretend. I was so lost, Snow.” 

 

She’s crying again, remembering that damned crib tornado and blasting Regina and her hands on Henry’s face and she loves them all and had caused them nothing but pain. She’d tried to hide away for so long, terrified that they’d see her for what she is- more trouble than she’s worth when she isn’t the savior, when she's helpless and bitter and only a lost girl craving things she’s never deserved. 

 

And then Snow’s hand on hers, tight enough to break through the fog that surrounds her. “I wish I could have found you. I wish I’d seen that you were–“ She reaches up to touch Emma’s face, tentative as she brushes away a tear and Emma’s afraid to move. “Regina saw and I didn’t. _Regina_.” 

 

“Regina’s…” She feels the smile creep onto her tearstained face and chases it away. _Not the time, not the time._ “Regina’s a good teacher,” she says finally. “And she warned me to stop sucking it up and talk about things and she’s _right._ Sometimes you can’t be strong. Sometimes people need to see that they…that they matter enough to make you weak.” She thinks of Henry with his eyes wide as he offers to help her and Regina with her eyes closed as Emma cleans a wound and… “Sometimes that’s all that hope is. It isn’t something to hold onto. It’s something to give away.” 

 

Snow cups her cheek, eyes dark with tears again as she smiles. “Oh, Emma. My brave, wise Emma.” She leans forward on the bed to kiss Emma’s forehead and Emma closes her eyes and feels it like returning home again for the first time. “You are everything I could have ever dreamed of.”

 

She’s whispering a new apology at Emma now, about the Echo Cave and Neverland and- “We should have never named Bae after Neal,” she murmurs. “I should have asked you before…I’d thought you were still in love. I wanted to blame a lot of the things I couldn’t understand about you on you being in love.” 

 

And maybe it’s exactly the time, when all is being told and Snow is beginning to be something like a mother today. And something like a friend. “Actually, I have been…” She hesitates.

 

Snow lights up, pulling away from her to meet her eyes. “You’re in _love_? Who is he? Is it because Hook left?” 

 

“ _My god_.” She groans, the atmosphere of the room settling into something far more comfortable. “It isn’t Hook. It isn’t even… I’m kind of a lesbian, Snow.” She holds her breath and waits. Somehow the admission seems nearly as daunting as telling her mother that she’d killed a man, even after all of Snow’s assurances of her love tonight.

 

Snow’s eyes widen. “Oh. _Oh._ ” She smiles again, hesitant. “You know you don’t have to be a lesbian, right?” 

 

…And somehow it’s even worse than she’d thought. “Excuse me?” 

 

Snow’s brow furrows. “Well, I mean, bisexual erasure is a real issue nowadays. I know the Enchanted Forest is a bit old-fashioned, but…” She drops her hand from Emma’s cheek to press it to her own forehead. “We don’t even have a PFLAG chapter here. I was going to organize one but I thought it might be too pushy and then the curse broke.” 

 

Emma stares at her, caught somewhere between relief and more tears. “How do you know any of that?”

 

Snow quirks a smile. “It’s funny now, considering how close you two have gotten, but back during the curse when you were a little _too_ obsessed with Regina, I did some research. I wanted to be supportive.” She brightens even more. “So who is the lucky lady?” 

 

Now Emma laughs, the tears spilling out with hilarity instead of frustration. Even with whatever soul-searching Snow has done over the past few days, she’s still so wholly oblivious. And Emma thinks this might be their forever and it might be bearable, after all. 

 

Snow looks miffed for a moment and then her eyes round with understanding. “ _Oh_ ,” she says again, pinching at the bridge of her nose. “Well.” She takes a breath and Emma stops laughing, trepidation rising again as she waits. “Good.” 

 

“Good?” 

 

“Good.” Snow doesn’t elaborate any more than that, just smiles enigmatically and reaches for Emma’s hand again with a whispered _I love you, I swear I love you_ , and they hold each other’s gaze in the dimness until Emma’s eyelids are heavy again and her magic is all but faded from around her, settling faintly over their joined hands at the center of the bed.


	16. Chapter 16

**xxix. dissipation**

Zelena is bent over in the dining room when Regina enters, so deeply engrossed in what she’s doing that she doesn’t appear to notice Regina set down the stack of plates. Regina tilts her head, watching as the candle Zelena is focused on releases a wisp of smoke, nothing more. Zelena hisses a curse.

 

“Until then,” Regina says, and Zelena jolts. “Why don’t you set out the plates?” 

 

Zelena stares at her. Regina smiles blandly. “I’m not your maid,” Zelena huffs, returning to the candle. This time nothing happens, and Regina heads back to the kitchen to retrieve the silverware. When she returns, the plates are set out neatly in their places and Zelena is at the candle again.

 

Her magic is returning, bit by tiny bit, and Regina’s checked on her gemstone where it’s hidden in the crypt and felt it warm with still-moving energy. It’s only been a few days and Zelena can do _something_. It won’t be long now. “You don’t need magic to survive here,” Regina offers, passing her the forks. “I managed twenty-eight years without it, didn’t I?” 

 

Zelena scoffs, circling the table. Six places are set, the dining room table full for the first time in thirty years, and a shiver of belonging passes through Regina as Zelena grabs the spoons. “You had no magic and they had no memories. Talk to me when you’ve survived a town that wants to kill you without magic.” 

 

“I did.” Regina arranges the napkins while Zelena starts on the steak knives. “For a day.” Before she’d gotten her power back, when she’d been at the mercy of the Charmings and the town and had been marked for a wraith.

 

“A day?” Zelena rolls her eyes. “Inspiring.” 

 

_Terrifying_. That’s what it had been, empty-handed and powerless and weak for the first time since she’d become queen. There had been nothing but a flimsy door protecting her from hundreds of bloodthirsty vengeance-seekers, and the only two people who might have been sympathetic to her plight had been lost to another world. 

 

But she doesn’t concede that point to Zelena, only says, “Spare me the pity party. You’re living in my home. Do you think anyone can touch you here?” 

 

She rounds the table when she realizes that Zelena hasn’t moved, the last steak knife clenched in her fist as she glares at Regina. “You’re insufferable.” 

 

“And you’re pathetic,” Regina counters, a thrill like the promise of impending doom soaring through her. Zelena is still brandishing the knife, eyes furiously wild and trapped at the same time, and Regina reaches past her to slide a glass in place next to the place setting. Zelena lowers her hand.

 

“Will you send me to my room now for bad behavior?” She’s petulant all the time, stripped of power and cranky about it, and gods help her, Regina is beginning to find it as endearing as it is irritating. Maybe it’s just because she switches tacks so quickly, from angry to silently obedient, maybe it’s because her mercurial shifts in attention are not unfamiliar. But Zelena remains someone Regina finds tolerable, at least.

 

She finishes with the table and passes Zelena a vase to set in the center of it. “Are you planning on stabbing anyone at dinner?” 

 

“I’m coming to dinner?” Zelena demands, voice upping an octave in startled confusion.

 

Regina gestures at the table. “Six places. This isn’t the Baelfire you had imprisoned, you know that, right? Snow might even wait until this one can roll over on his own before she starts serving him steak.”

 

Zelena’s lips purse together, unamused and caught up in new tension. “You think they’ll want me there?” 

 

“I’m fairly certain they will not.” Regina returns to the kitchen to flip the steaks. They steam in the frying pan, nearly fully seared. “You’re welcome to stay in your room for the rest of your life. But if you plan on coexisting with the people of this town, they’ll be among the most forgiving.” 

 

“Not Emma.” 

 

“Can you blame her?”

 

Zelena scowls at that. It’s…it’s a different case than it had ever been for Regina and those she’d hurt most- because they’d also been the ones who’d hurt her most. There had been bitterness on both sides, love and hate and resentment combined, and they’d moved past it together.

 

But Zelena had targeted Emma only because her light magic had been a threat and because Regina had cared about her. There’s no easy justification and they both know it, and if Regina chooses to be forgiving toward her sister, she won’t push Emma to do the same. Barely contained dislike is better than murder or manipulation, at least.

 

There’s a quick rapping on the front door and then it opens, Henry leading the others inside as they dry off from the rain. Regina keeps her eyes on Zelena. Zelena hesitates. Sits at the kitchen table. 

 

Good.

 

There’s something different about the sounds as they enter, and Regina pauses, listening to the chatter of voices as they make their way into the foyer. It isn’t Emma, who’s only responding as the others chatter around her, but _Snow_. Snow is chatting with the others as though she isn’t on edge, as though she isn’t afraid of Emma anymore.

 

Regina steps out of the room in time to catch Emma with a genuine smile on her face, listening as Snow goes on about some curriculum changes she’s missing on maternity leave. There’s still a distance between the two women, Henry safely between them, but for the first time since Emma had returned to town, she’s watching her mother without pain in her eyes, pushing the stroller into the room and lifting out her brother to hold.

 

For a moment, Regina is terrified. She’d wanted Emma to work things out with Snow but they look like a _family_ , entering her house, the five of them together. Emma looks more at ease than she’s been in a long time and Henry and David are making faces at the baby while Snow scolds them and she knows Henry is hers but is there a place for her in Emma’s life when Emma is secure? Or have they just been clinging to each other because they’d had no one else?

 

Then Henry looks up and grins, “Mom!” and Snow is virtually beaming at her (There’s something dangerous in her smile, though, and Regina isn’t quite sure how to respond to that). And Emma looks away from the baby- and something within Regina stirs with longing at the image of it, Emma with a child in her arms, but she files that away for now- and her eyes light up, even more dazzling than they’d been before.

 

“Regina,” she murmurs, and heat rises in Regina's cheeks at the look on Emma’s face. Snow is nearly bouncing in anticipation now and Regina spares her a disdainful glower before Emma is dragging her back into the kitchen, pressing her lips against Regina’s forehead for a moment before she kisses her hard.

 

“My mom knows about us,” she mumbles between kisses, backing Regina up against a counter. 

 

Regina draws her closer, hands sliding around to perch at Emma’s hips and her leg slipping between Emma’s. “Snow knows?” So _that_ had been what that dangerous look had been. Snow is playing nice so far, but she’s going to hold this over Regina’s head _forever_. She’s supposed to get to be the smug one.

 

Emma nods, tugging at Regina’s lower lip with her teeth for a moment and letting go to nuzzle her nose. “It’s a nightmare. We’ll never get another moment of privacy.”

 

Zelena coughs loudly from her spot at the table and Emma jumps away from Regina as though burned. Regina spares a glance to the doorway, where Snow is peeking in, eyebrows raised at her. She backs away at Regina’s look and Zelena smirks.

 

“You.” Emma’s face darkens. “Regina, don’t tell me she’s coming to–” She swallows the rest of the protest and nods sharply, swallowing and smiling painfully.

 

“Stop that,” Regina orders her, disgusted. “I’m not your mother. You don’t need to pretend you’re all right with this.” She sees magic out of the corner of her eye, glowing brightly and then winking out as Emma slouches. 

 

“I’m trying to be supportive,” she mutters. “I think I owe you at least a few weeks of enabling self-destructive behavior.” Zelena rolls her eyes and rises, calling Henry’s name as she walks out of the room. 

 

“That’s charming.” 

 

Emma gives her a dimpled grin, eyes light again like they’d been when she’d entered the house, and she presses a kiss to Regina’s cheek. “I can be charming.” 

 

“Like an untrained puppy,” Regina mutters, but she’s flushing despite herself at the look on Emma’s face. All at once, it’s hunger and amusement and something like…

 

She inhales slowly. Now is not the time to consider _that_. Emma kisses her again, more gently this time. “Come on. Let’s go have an agonizing dinner with your sister and my parents.” 

 

“You talked to Snow, didn’t you?” It’s apparent in how easily she mentions them, in the way she’d watched Snow in the foyer and the way she smiles now. Things aren’t mended yet, but there’s finally promise that they’re getting there.

 

Emma shrugs. “We got to air out some stuff. It’s better now.” 

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.” She smiles again and rolls her eyes at the same time, as though it’s a bit too much contentment for her to stomach. “At least…I think we’ll be able to talk next time instead of pretending. It’s a start.” 

 

“Starts are good.” Regina is feeling that insecurity again, the suspicion that Emma is  _complete_ now, surrounded by the family she’s always longed for. That all she’d been had been a stand-in for what they’d needed, Snow and Emma and even Henry, and...

 

Emma curls her fingers around her wrist and the warmth chases away the cold. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “For sending me back there.” The cold returns in full force. “I think if I’d stayed at home, I would have given up on Snow altogether. And I thought…” She hesitates, dropping Regina’s wrist. “I thought you sending me away was about keeping Zelena.” 

 

“Emma, _no_ ,” she says, chagrined, and reaches for her hand again.

 

“I know.” They begin the walk to the now-emptied foyer, dropping the other's hand automatically when they reach it, and Regina feels it like a loss. Emma shifts closer to her, their hands still brushing together with every step. “Snow said that she’d spoken to you, and I realized then that…” She shrugs and Regina kisses her this time, slow and languid, until Henry is making gagging noises from the next room and Snow is watching them from her vantage point on the couch with unreserved interest. “Thank you,” Emma says again, disentangling from her to move out of her mother’s line of view.

 

Regina follows, pressing her forehead to Emma’s when Emma pulls her close. “It doesn’t have to be forever.” 

 

“It better not be. Bae is so calm during the day that you wouldn’t believe the demon he becomes at night.” She grins again and Regina parts from her only long enough to call everyone to the table.

 

Zelena sits between Regina and Henry and Emma takes Regina’s other side, watching Zelena warily. Emma’s eyes flicker down to Zelena's steak knife and Regina kicks her in the ankle. “Ow.” 

 

“Problem, Miss Swan?” 

 

“Just the usual one,” she says sweetly, and then, “Ow!” again, this time glaring at Henry. 

 

Henry makes a face at her. Snow says, “Children, please,” but she sounds more amused than anything. Her eyes rove to Zelena and then back to Regina, and finally to Emma before she reaches to touch Emma’s hand under the table. Emma doesn’t pull away, Regina notes with relief.

 

They eat in silence, some halfhearted small talk offered that avoids all the elephants in the room with discomfort. Emma’s magic. Zelena’s presence. Snow and Emma’s relationship. _Regina_ and Emma’s relationship, though when she looks up sometimes, she can see Snow studying her with sharp eyes as though she knows that Emma’s rubbing her foot against Regina’s calf under the table.

 

“So!” Snow says finally, rounding on Zelena with a friendly smile. Zelena looks at her with trepidation. “How…uh…how did you know all those things about being a midwife?” 

 

“You know, back when you were trying to steal my brother,” Emma puts in. “What exactly were you planning on taking him for?” 

 

Zelena lifts her chin, a thin smile on her lips. “Time travel.” 

 

Regina cocks an eyebrow. “Time travel is impossible.” 

 

“Only because it’s never been done before.” She’s haughty and confident as she looks down at them, but it’s so clearly a smokescreen for her discomfiture that Regina is embarrassed on her behalf. Henry shifts uncertainly and Zelena says quickly, “I was more talented than _you_ long before I was given that pendant. Rumple even thought so.” 

 

“Yeah, and she kicked your ass,” Emma retorts. “So maybe Rumple doesn’t know jacksh–“ She catches herself, glances at Henry. “You weren’t a match for Regina.” 

 

“Regina picked up some of that light magic,” Snow says, but neither of them are listening to her, Emma straightening and Zelena glaring coldly down at her.

 

“I was more than a match for _you_ , or have you forgotten?” Zelena’s lip curls. “You were a pale imitation of the threat I’d been led to believe you were.” 

 

“And you were outsmarted by a twelve-year-old boy.” Emma smiles tightly. “How many years were you planning this vengeance? Were you in stasis during the curse? Or was it just a decade or two? And now you’re powerless and weak and a _failure_ ,” she pronounces the last word with extra disdain and a growl tears itself from Zelena’s throat.

 

“That's  _enough_.” This has escalated too quickly, Emma and Zelena on their best behavior still like ticking time bombs around each other. “If you want to–“ 

 

“ _I’m_ a failure?” Zelena cuts her off, fists clenching against the tablecloth. “Look at you. I moved into your home and you _knew_ who I was. We both know it.” Emma’s jaw tightens. Zelena smiles. “Did you prefer me, _pet_?”

 

“Enough!” Regina snaps again, her stomach sinking. She doesn’t want to think about that, has been pushing Emma’s first confession to her out of mind for days now. She doesn’t know _how_ to think about it, and Zelena wields it now like a weapon far more lethal than a steak knife.

 

Zelena ignores her. “Following after me like a lovesick beast,” she purrs. “I could have had you destroy yourself.” 

 

Regina sees the blue glow haloing Emma, bright enough from the hands she’s keeping under the table that she can’t hide it anymore. But Emma’s silent, only her jaw working under her skin. 

 

Zelena laughs and Snow opens her mouth but fails to speak. “You were so very desperate. In love with Regina. In love with Walsh. So hungry for love that you’d live a lie for just a tiny bit of–“ 

 

Emma’s magic explodes at Zelena, cracking through the tabletop and sending china crashing to the floor as it slams into the other woman. Zelena is smashed into the wall, the magic dying as quickly as it takes Regina to seize Emma’s hands, and a glass slams into her an instant later.

 

Glass shatters over Zelena's face, blood dripping down from her forehead, and Emma’s hands go rigid and then limp in Regina’s. Regina drops them from her grasp, instinctively hurrying to Zelena. “David, I need a damp towel. Henry, antiseptic,” she orders, eyes back to Emma.

 

Emma is still standing in place, eyes blazing with anger and fear and regret at once, and Snow starts toward her while Henry hurries to Regina. “Emma…” Regina begins, and Emma sucks in a breath like it’s her first of the night.

 

“I should go,” she says hastily. She’s heading for the front door before Regina can snap after her, “ _Emma._ Emma, don’t you dare–“ 

 

The door opens to a torrent of rain and slams shut behind her and Regina can feel Emma running, her magic glowing dimmer as she flees like a star winking out of sight. “Dammit,” she hisses, crouching back down in front of Zelena. Zelena glares at her and Regina ignores her, yanks out the glass and takes the towel to clean it before she seals the wound with her magic. There’s still a nasty gash across Zelena's forehead, red and puckered and large enough to leave a scar, and Regina doesn’t care.

 

Zelena’s head lolls forward and Regina stands, yanks her to her feet and presses her back against the wall before she takes a step back. “Enough,” she says for the third time, voice low and deadly. She’s furious, furious at Zelena for taking Emma’s bait and pressing all the wrong buttons, furious at Emma for running off, furious at herself for even trying this in the first place. “Listen to me.”

 

Zelena’s eyes close and flicker open again, resentment shining deep in them. “What?” 

 

“You’re going to stop antagonizing Emma. Stop– stop talking to her altogether when she’s around.” 

 

“She started–“ 

 

Regina holds up a finger and Zelena falls silent, glowering at her. “Do _not_. If you want to stay here…” She doesn’t know if Zelena does, if anything they’ve built over the past couple of days will last past these threats. Zelena is a prisoner here, too, as easy as it is to forget it.

 

But Zelena can break Emma again with the right words carefully directed at the right times. Zelena is standing in the way of Emma’s recovery and Regina won’t allow her to lash out anymore. “If you want to stay here, you’re going to learn to be _penitent_ around her. You’re going to be on your best behavior and you’re going to have to take whatever anger she owes you because if I have to choose to keep one of you around, I see no reason why I should keep you.” 

 

The words are harsh and she doesn’t temper them, angry enough that she wants to see Zelena’s eyes darken as hers have and lash out so Regina can fight right back. But instead something dulls in Zelena’s eyes and she nods slowly. “Yes, of course. Now may I go rest?” 

 

She sounds different now, uncertain and longing and stubborn, and Regina knows she’s hit a sore spot but she can’t bring herself to care when Zelena’s words are still ringing through her mind. _Did you prefer me, pet?_ It’s such sheer exploitation of Emma, of her, of the two of them, and she’s…

 

_Fuck_ , she’s genuinely hurt. Zelena isn’t supposed to be getting under her skin like this. She’s barely more than a stranger now. She doesn’t have that power. She _can’t_.  

 

She grimaces at the wall and Zelena watches her with the same expression on her face and Regina squeezes her thumbs into her palms and wheels around, Zelena dismissed. Her face is even tighter now and Henry says in a small voice, “Mom?"

 

“Henry.” She reaches for him and he shifts back, hands shoved into his pockets so they can’t fidget, but he doesn’t pull away when she wraps an arm around his shoulders. He’s getting tall enough that the position is awkward, but she refuses to contemplate that. “Emma didn’t mean to…” She sighs. He _knows_. “She’ll be back.” 

 

“She keeps doing this. Running.” He looks so disappointed in Emma that Regina’s heart aches for both of them. “I thought she was getting better.” 

 

“She is, Henry. But it’s been just a few days. And she’s still…working things out.” She sounds unconvincing even to her own ears, and she turns to cup his chin, meeting his eyes. “You know how long it took me to be who you needed.” 

 

“But you didn’t have anyone,” Henry argues, having the decency to sound apologetic about it. “Emma has us. All of us.” He waves at the empty room- Snow and David have discreetly left the room already and Zelena has slunk upstairs- but she understands. “We’re all here for her too.” 

 

“Sometimes having people makes it harder. Especially when you’re afraid of letting them down. You know how hard your Ma tries to be...” _Enough_ , her mind supplies, and she hesitates, unwilling to place that burden on Henry’s shoulders.

 

She’s hit by another wave of frustration with Emma, just as acute as Henry’s own frustration. Emma’s been on her best behavior since Zelena had been defeated and she’d thought they were past this. “However long it takes for Emma, we’re going to have each other, right? It’s all right if you want to be upset with her. But she loves you and I love you and nothing’s going to change that.” 

 

“I guess.” Henry looks glum about the whole situation, and he drags his feet as he wanders out of the room to the rest of the family.

 

Regina slips into the quiet kitchen to sit at the table in there, forehead pinched and a migraine coming on. She might’ve failed with Zelena tonight, pushed her further than she’d ever planned to, and Emma is certainly regressing somewhere in the town, probably taking out her frustrations on some hapless villain who’s gotten in her way.

 

“Stop that,” she hears a warning voice, and Snow sits down across from her at the table. “I know what you’re thinking, and no. No, she isn’t.” 

 

Regina scowls at her. “Aren’t you the one who was so convinced that Emma could never have dabbled in dark magic? Isn’t it time we got a break from the relentless optimism?” 

 

Snow presses her lips together and bites down on them before she releases them with a pop. “You were right last time. And I know you’re still upset–“ 

 

“I’m not upset.” 

 

Snow watches her with a knowing gaze that makes her want to set Snow on fire. “Aren’t you? From what Emma tells me, she’s pushed you into some of her less pleasant agendas, attacked you more than once…and Zelena taking your body has to sting. I know you, Regina. I can’t imagine you’ve become _this_ tolerant.” 

 

“I spent a year trapped in a castle with you. You’d be surprised.” But Snow just watches her, quirking her lips in a smile and waiting, and Regina sighs. “I’m just trying to hold on to everyone, Snow. I’ve done far worse to Emma than anything she’s done to me now.” 

 

Snow reaches across the table to rest her hands on hers. “I don’t think we work like that, Regina. There isn’t a tally of acceptable actions and reactions…” She squeezes Regina’s hand. “But that’s for you and Emma to discuss, I guess. Have faith in her. Like she’s had faith in you. She’s going to come back to you.” 

 

A small voice says from behind Regina, “I’m here, actually.” She turns. Emma is standing at the side door, drenched and with a bobby pin in her hand like she’d just picked the lock instead of knocking. 

 

Snow leaps up and wraps her arms around her and Emma’s eyes widen with startled uncertainty. She catches Regina’s gaze and looks away. “Emma!”

 

“Hi.” Emma’s hands slide up uncertainly to hold her mother, but she holds on until Snow lets her go, raising her hands to Emma’s cheeks to study her face for a moment. “I…uh. I didn’t hurt anyone, if that’s what you’ve been thinking. I just jogged around the block and then kind of kicked the apple tree a few times and then stubbed my toe and sat in the rain for a while until I stopped…” She holds up her hands in explanation. “See? No magic.” 

 

“You could have done that inside,” Snow says disapprovingly, but she hesitates, glancing from Emma to Regina for a moment. “How about I…Would you mind if we took Henry home tonight? We haven’t gotten to see much of him since he’d gotten his memories back and I’ve missed him. Emma can stay here, if she wants.”

 

“Subtle,” Regina says dryly, but she stands anyway, reaching for Emma’s arm as Emma starts toward her, Snow’s hands hovering just above Emma’s shoulder as she steps aside. She’s smiling at Regina with a fair amount of benevolence and warning at the same time, and Regina rolls her eyes in return, her face softening as Emma passes over to her. “Come. Let’s get you warmed up.” 

 

She still has a few stray articles of Emma’s clothing in her room, but Emma digs through her drawers until she finds a loose grey tee that Regina hasn’t worn since Henry was at his spit-up stage and pulls it on instead, still shivering and bedraggled. Regina silently leads the way down the stairs, the Charmings gone with Henry, and wraps Emma in a blanket on the sofa beside the fireplace. “Why don’t you do the honors?”

 

Emma blinks at her, looks down at her hand and nods, furrowing her brow and concentrating until a fire grows strong in the fireplace. She slides over to the edge of the couch, as close as she can get to the flames, and Regina sits down on the opposite couch, picking up a toy far too old for Bae that Snow had left behind.

 

She twists it in her hands, watching balls slide through pipes as they shift, and Emma says, “I’m sorry.” 

 

“You have to do what you have to do to keep yourself under control,” Regina allows. With Emma here again, her frustration is muted with relief and embarrassment that she’d ever suspected that Emma would have… “I wish you’d stay in the house to do it, though.” 

 

“I came back. I’m learning.” Emma tries for a half-hearted grin and Regina softens even more. “Kicking the tree seemed to work.” 

 

“The tree it is, then.” Regina narrows her eyes in warning. “But if you _ever_ damage it again–“ 

 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m banned from the yard for life, right?” Emma draws her knees up against her, tightening the blanket around her body. “I didn’t mean I was sorry for that. I mean, I _am_ , but…” She swallows loudly. “I’m sorry about Zelena. Earlier, and…and she was right. I was…”

 

Her voice cuts off abruptly and Regina wants _more_ , needs to know what she hasn’t been allowing herself to wonder, but they’re already on shaky ground, perpetually about to crash and burn, and now isn’t the time. “You don’t need to talk about this.” 

 

“Don’t I?” Emma leans forward, eyebrows still knit together. “Zelena was right,” she says again. “I was a…a _lovesick fool_.” 

 

“Emma–“ She’s startled at the admission. They don’t _do_ that. They love in hands grazing each other and in sentences they never finish and they never, ever talk about what it all means. Regina doesn’t expect it from Emma, who still struggles to tell _Henry_ she loves him in less-than-dire situations.

 

Emma shrugs under the blanket, eyes moving to stare into the fireplace. “I just…I wanted to keep you. And I was miserable and I loved you and I wanted to believe that she was you because better you were distant than you hated me for what I’d become. For what I’d done to you.” She laughs, short and angry at herself. “I was so lost in hate and pain that I think I was afraid to have someone real holding onto me. Which is bullshit.” 

 

“Not bullshit.” Emma blinks at her and Regina says, “Have you forgotten who I am?” 

 

“You’re Regina.” Emma says it with authority, steeling herself as though she’s ready for a fight. “Whatever you did in the past, it doesn’t mean that–“ 

 

“That I’m uniquely equipped to understand you?” Regina cuts her off. “Spare me the self-flogging. It doesn’t suit you.” She remembers to smile a moment too late, but Emma’s already watching her, penitence gone at the challenge and replaced with a long-suffering sigh and attentive eyes. “I don’t hate you. You know that. And I have some experience in rejecting what’s real to hold onto darkness.” She’d rejected everything from friendship to a soulmate to her own father in favor of her vengeance, and it had left her alone and angry and craving love again. “You only punish yourself in the end.” 

 

She breathes, clearing out resentment that she’d been hanging onto without allowing herself to dwell on it until now. “And I won’t punish you for that. Nor will Zelena anymore.” She tries for an encouraging smile that freezes on her face and Emma’s suddenly in front of her, in a half-crouch as she peruses Regina’s face.

 

“Regina. What’s wrong?” Her own uncertainty is forgotten as she sees _something_ on Regina’s face, recognizes pain and doesn’t understand it at all. “Did you…did you send Zelena away?” There’s a bit too much hope under Emma’s concern, and Regina struggles to ignore it.

 

“No,” she says, and Emma purses her lips together. “It’s only that…Emma, her magic is coming back. At this rate, it could only be a few weeks before she’s fully equipped to wreak havoc again.” 

 

Emma’s jaw works under her skin, her eyes flicker up to Zelena’s room, and Regina is bracing herself for what new- very valid- demands Emma is going to make. Zelena is a threat again, as swiftly as she’d been defanged.

 

But instead Emma flops down beside her with a sigh and murmurs in her ear, “And you’re worried that she’ll still want to. That’s why you’ve suddenly developed the patience of a saint.” She laughs, breath tickling against Regina’s neck. “You’ve been trying to give her a reason to think twice about it.” 

 

Regina leans against her and Emma tucks her damp hair over her shoulder and wraps an arm around her. “She’ll have to be locked up. Soon. I know that. But if all she’s ever wanted is a place to belong…” She thinks back to Zelena’s dull gaze when Regina had made it clear that she’d choose Emma over her and that it might be too late already. “She isn’t as angry as I was. She’s just…lost. And I still have a chance to give her what I have.” 

 

“A second chance?” 

 

“A family. People to care about.” She catches Emma’s lips as the other woman turns to her and brushes against them very softly. “People to love.” 

 

They shift to lie on the couch by mutual agreement, Emma sliding down behind her and catching her around the waist while Regina strokes her thumb against Emma’s hand. “I can’t believe we got here,” she confesses in a murmur. “For all I’ve done…for all we’ve been through…I never really believed I’d have a happy ending.” 

 

“I’m part of your happy ending?” Emma sounds like she’d tried to make a joke but it loses its humor halfway through and becomes hushed and awed. “But Henry–“ 

 

“Henry is everything,” Regina agrees, and rolls over in Emma’s arms to face her. “But so are you.” 

 

They’re back to _I love you_ without speaking the words, communicating in a slow kiss that deepens and in Emma’s hand cupping her cheek and a whispered, _Regina, I–_ that never needs to be completed. They’re back to open eyes when they come apart and careful hands tracing a path into Emma’s shorts and Emma’s mouth working against her nipples over her dress’s fabric.

 

A quick puff of blue and purple at once and they’re back to Regina’s bed, back to openmouthed kisses against her neck as Regina works her fingers into Emma and there’s magic flowing freely from both of them now. They’re back to sighs and groans and Emma’s heart is drawing in so much energy from her that neither of them can stop or try to, Emma’s magic strengthening Regina’s and everything is more sensitized when they’re overcome with it and the first time Emma comes, her heart shines white so brightly that its magic washes over Regina and they’re both shuddering against each other with the force of something more powerful than just the two of them, back to being wrapped around each other in bed as their magic joins with their bodies.

 

* * *

**xxx. consummation**

Emma wakes up to a sputtering sound, like metal being drilled through and sparks flying everywhere, and she yawns and stretches and enjoys, for a moment, the comfort of being back in Regina’s bed. _Their_ bed, she’d been thinking of it as, and she thinks for a moment about coming home soon. 

 

Not yet. There’s still too much to work through at Snow’s that she can’t hide from anymore. But soon. 

 

She rolls over, checks the time- it’s noon already, how hadn’t she awakened?- and notices suddenly that her heart doesn’t hurt anymore. Somehow during the night, all that magic had consolidated into her and…

 

She breathes more easily than she has since she’d tried to destroy it and sits up, comfortable and sated and pouting a bit at the knowledge that she’s missed a morning with Regina. _There will be more_ , she thinks, confident in that assertion, and pulls on one of the tees they’d produced last night. And then freezes, eyes widening as they focus on the view out the window.

 

The sparks _are_ flying, red against purple-blue like someone’s breaking through their wards on the house, and Emma bolts for the door and down the stairs. “Zelena! Zelena, if you’re trying to escape–“ 

 

She turns wildly and then stiffens as the cool barrel of her pistol presses against the side of her head. It’s shaky and its bearer is trembling as she holds it in place, and Emma takes in a deep breath, calming herself before she does something stupid. “Zelena,” she says again, more carefully. “What do you think you’re doing?”

 

“Let me out of here.” Zelena says, her voice high and on the verge of hysterics. “Get me out of this house now or I’ll shoot this gun through your head.” 

 

“Do you even know how to fire a gun?” 

 

“Does it matter when I’m this close?” Zelena counters.

 

Emma puts her hands up, heartbeat quickening as she searches for options. “No. It doesn’t.” 

 

“So let me go!” There’s still that odd drilling sound from outside and Zelena shoves her forward with the gun. “I want to _leave_.” 

 

“Zelena, we can talk about this. It isn’t safe for you out there, either.” She struggles to keep her voice calm, to tamp down the loathing she feels every time she’s in Zelena’s general vicinity. Her life depends on Zelena listening to reason.

 

It doesn’t look good.

 

“Regina’s put a lot on the line to protect you. You don’t want to let her down.” 

 

“I’ll kill her too if you don’t take down your wards!” Wrong answer. Emma kicks at Zelena and- inexperienced as she is with it- she drops the gun with a clatter. Emma snatches it up, kicks Zelena to the ground, and aims the gun at her. 

 

And then the sound of drilling stops and Zelena scoots back on her ass, looking terrified, as the door slides open across the foyer.

 

“Ah, Miss Swan,” Mr. Gold says, sweeping past her into the house. Emma turns, eyes wide. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to take care of.” 

 

“What?” But Zelena is already stumbling to her feet, making a mad dash for the front door, and Emma finally understands her desperation from before. Gold has come to collect, and Zelena can’t escape him. 

 

She nearly makes it to the doorway before there’s a puff of red smoke and Gold reappears in front of her. “Not so fast.” He smiles at her, cruel and vengeful, and Zelena freezes. “It’s no fun to be caged, is it, _dearie_?” 

 

Emma finds her voice. “Hey. Hey! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” She waves her gun feebly, at one of them and then the other, uncertain. Gold is moving toward Zelena with bloodlust in mind, and Zelena takes a step back.

 

Instinct kicks in and Emma steps between them. “Move aside, Miss Swan,” Gold says in a dangerous tone.

 

“You’re going to kill her.” Of course he is. Zelena had held his dagger for months, had had him under her control and made him vulnerable, and Gold won’t hesitate to punish such arrogance. He  must have been dreaming of this moment for weeks. 

 

She can’t blame him, exactly, and she knows the moment he sees that on her face.

 

“And why not?” Gold asks silkily. His eyes probe into her, knowing and hungry. “Wouldn’t you?” 

 

“Regina–“ 

 

“Regina doesn’t need a sister so _unstable_. Zelena would kill her and your little boy the moment she has the opportunity.” Gold’s eyes glitter. “And we know that she’ll have the opportunity. Dear Regina has always been too free with her heart.” 

 

She can’t respond, can’t argue with any of that, and something ugly and angry stirs within her. Something that reminds her of Walsh on the floor in Zelena’s barn and it had been so _easy_ , so simple to wash her hands of him and that chapter of her life. He’d deserved it. 

 

Zelena deserves even worse and she craves to see her _end_ , hates her for manipulating and lying and scheming to destroy them all. For letting her love a lie twice and taunting her with it. For nearly taking Henry from them and for bringing Emma to her knees and for stealing Regina away and having the audacity to hide behind her now. Regina cares too much already and Zelena will betray her, will destroy them all while Regina reels from it.

 

But she can’t stand by and… She shakes her head in a vain attempt to rid herself of intrusive thoughts. Zelena dismissing her as useless. Zelena gloating over her loss of magic. Emma trapped like a rat in a maze, boxed in on three sides and no way to go but backwards as Zelena sends her minions to tempt Emma further. Zelena sitting on the couch beside Henry as though she belongs in this house. 

 

“I can make it look like an ugly suicide,” Gold croons. “Regina never has to know. You don’t have to do anything but step aside and Regina will never know you had any part in this.” 

 

Zelena remains wisely silent, perhaps aware that anything she says will only seal her fate further, and Emma says, “It’ll break Regina’s heart. I can’t let you do that.” 

 

“Regina will mourn and move on. She has her happy ending. Zelena is only an obstacle along the way. Now _step aside_.” 

 

Regina had called her and Henry her happy ending the night before. Henry had thought that Zelena would be someone in Regina’s camp, but…

 

“Do you want to know how many years she spent dreaming of killing Regina? How Regina had been only a young apprentice of mine when Zelena had first attempted to slit her throat? How Zelena had had a chance to have a sisterhood and destroyed it out of envy?” Gold laughs, a cackle to it that sounds more like Rumplestiltskin than passive shopkeeper. “Zelena is powered by envy. How long do you think it’ll take before she sees what Regina has and breaks again?” 

 

“I wouldn’t,” Zelena croaks from behind her. “I wouldn’t hurt Regina now, Emma, please. I didn’t mean it.” 

 

Emma turns to stare at her, sees fear in her eyes for the first time, and sees darkness lingering behind it. Hatred as strong as her own, still present, and Emma knows that Zelena hates her in that moment for having to plead for her life. “Please,” she says again, and Emma feels the thrill of Zelena _begging_ , Zelena broken and afraid as Emma had been.

 

She’s been waiting for this for so long, and it’s finally in her grasp. She could step aside now and watch, could run upstairs and close her eyes again and turn a blind eye to whatever happens downstairs.

 

She steps aside. 

 

Zelena seizes her arm and says, dull and resigned, “You’re going to leave me, aren’t you.”  

 

She yanks her arm away and Gold moves forward, murderous intent in his eyes, and then Zelena’s words register. Regina had said those exact words to her one day two years ago, had held onto her hand in a burning building and spoken as though she hadn't believed in goodness in the world. 

 

And for the first time, Emma sees what Regina sees in Zelena’s eyes, desperation and uncertainty and another woman who’d never been loved right. Another woman who’d fallen prey to magic in a desperate attempt to find power in a world that would strip her of it. 

 

Gold scoffs. “You’re not worth saving. And Miss Swan is just like me. An agent of darkness, as bound to well-deserved vengeance as I am.” He leans down, seizing her by the throat. 

 

Resolve takes hold of her again as she raises her hands and squeezes them around her gun. “No." she says. “I’m the savior.” And she shoots him in the arm. 

 

He hadn’t expected it, hadn’t thought to defend himself, and he’s thrown back from the force of it and darkness seems to gather around him as Emma snaps out, “Zelena! Run!”

 

Zelena stumbles, gaping up at her, and races up the stairs. Gold holds out his hand and tendrils of golden magic emerge from his palm, swooping up toward Zelena, and Emma charges for her, wraps her arms around Zelena and focuses hard. The tendrils hit them just as she makes them disappear, and they reappear just outside Zelena’s room and stagger in behind the final wall of wards. 

 

“You can’t keep her from me forever,” Gold calls after them in a growl, and Emma can hear him climbing up the stairs, clunk-step-step as he leans on his cane. 

 

Emma looks around the room, eyes lighting on the tall wardrobe along the side wall. She grabs it, shoving it forward toward the door, and nearly jumps when a second pair of hands pushes at it. Zelena is stronger than she looks, and they have the wardrobe in front of the door as Gold begins wearing away at these wards, too. “Zelena!” Gold howls, and he sounds crazed again by his vengeance. The lights in the house are blinking and there’s the sound of windows shattering in every room but this one. “You’ve earned worse than death. I will make you _dream_ of death.” 

 

Zelena backs away from the door, hands up and fists clenched and nothing but a faint green smoke emerging from them. “Dammit,” she growls. “Damn, damn, damn.” 

 

She’s angry and helpless and terrified and Emma feels her magic responding to it, warring within her- enthusiastic for Zelena's demise. Stubbornly determined to avert it. _I’m the savior_ , she thinks again, and suddenly it’s important again to hold onto that. Suddenly that crap title means something other than a weight she’s never wanted and it’s what she _does_ , not what she is. 

 

She’d once protected the innocent and vulnerable and defended them as no one had defended her, had been spurred to action out of a visceral need that had had nothing to do with prophecy or curses or magic. _That’s_ the savior she’d embrace, not some chosen one who leads a town that would follow her to their doom. That’s who Regina’s been emulating. That’s who she craves to become again.

 

That savior pulls the bitchy mayor out of a fire and protects her when her son cries for it. That savior had been lost somewhere along the way, vanished in feeble attempts to be the hero the town had seen her as. And she presses her lips together now and holds up her hands, _willing_ her magic to come forth as she demands it. 

 

Regina had said it. _I make my own destiny_. And Emma can recapture the light, can find it just as Regina had, and she says quietly, “You’re not going to die,” as her magic fades and returns like a white glow around her hands. 

 

“Why do you care?” Zelena demands, but she’s watching Emma’s hands with a tentative kind of hope that makes Emma shiver and look away. “You hate me. You want me dead.” 

 

“Yeah. But I don’t get to pick whether or not anyone deserves to live or die.” She gathers more magic and Zelena watches her with eyes that don’t comprehend, and she adds, “And Regina’s right. If we all get second chances, so do you. Even if I’d rather throw you into her crypt and lock it.” 

 

“The feeling is mutual,” Zelena mutters, but her eyes are bright like they’ve crossed _something_ just now, one hurdle on the way to a dozen more. 

 

And then the wardrobe is blasted into a thousand pieces and the sky grows dark and cloudy and the light fixture above them shatters as Gold breaks through the final wards and stands before them.

 

Emma concentrates like she had over Robin Hood’s body, rallies all the force she has as Gold releases magic from his hands, and she meets his blows with white magic streaked with blue. Their magic locks together and Emma chokes. 

 

It’s like stepping into a black hole and trying to scream, endless power all around her and so _immense_ , ancient and unlimited and she’s only a tiny speck of dust within it, caught in the undertow. She’s a foolish little girl playing games with someone far out of her league, and she can see Gold’s mouth forming smug warnings, _Step back now and I’ll spare you, Emma, she isn’t worth it, think of my grandson_ , and she pours out more and more magic.

 

She doesn’t have the control or skill that Regina does, doesn’t have the easy dominance that Zelena had displayed, but she has raw power, so much that it had consumed her before she’d learned how to harness it. And that’s all she has to counter Gold, who has Regina’s skill and Zelena’s ease and her own raw power.

 

But her heart beats in time with her magic, thrumming all together, and she remembers that _true love is the most powerful magic of all_ and her heart is made of pure love, built from her parents and given to her, and she loves hard and lets that consume her instead of the Dark One’s magic. She opens herself up like a reservoir of magic, light surrounding her within the darkness, and the black hole Gold has opened is illuminated with white-purple-blue that it can’t swallow.

 

She can feel herself faltering under its sheer energy output, too much for her body to handle, but she teeters in place and keeps her hands high, protecting Zelena with all she has. Yeah, she still hates her. But she loves Regina, and a piece of Regina is already within Zelena, so she loves her too. She’s going to last for as long as she can, until–

 

A shot rings out and Gold flies backward, his magic disrupted. Emma sinks to the ground, utterly spent. “How was that?” Zelena asks, kneeling down beside her with an irritating smirk on her face, and Emma nearly hugs her. “Have I mastered your silly little weapon yet?” 

 

Emma laughs weakly as she watches Gold, red swirling around him as the bullet emerges from healed skin and falls to the floor. He stands up again, eyes dark, and Zelena grabs hold of Emma’s arm. “Emma!”

 

“I would have spared you,” Gold rumbles. “I do owe you several debts of gratitude, Miss Swan. But I won’t have someone so foolish with her power in this town.” He lifts his hands again.

 

She might have more magic within her, but it’s too deep and she’s too weak to control it without ripping herself to shreds. Zelena has the gun, but it’ll do no good against Gold. This is it for them. 

 

She turns to Zelena and Zelena says, “I’m sorry,” and Emma doesn’t know for what. For bringing this upon them, for Walsh, for Regina, for everything that’s happened in the past year, maybe. Zelena is looking at her with such regret that could be for herself or for Emma or for both of them at once, and Emma thinks that she must have the same expression on her face. 

 

She returns her gaze to Gold and thinks of Regina and Henry one last time, remembers David’s arms around her and Snow’s hand clasped in hers and Baelfire tiny in her arms. _Baelfire_ , Regina’s voice says, and then more sharply, “Baelfire would be horrified to see you hurt the woman he loved.” 

 

Emma’s head jerks to the side and Zelena squeezes her arm more tightly and they’re both gaping up at the hallway behind Gold. And so is Gold, eyes narrowing with renewed resentment as Regina steps into view. “Baelfire is _gone_. Because of _her_.” He gestures to Zelena and she flinches.

 

“Baelfire sacrificed himself for you. She may have had some hand in his death,” Regina allows, and there’s no magic in her hands yet but Emma doesn’t doubt it’s close to the surface. She can feel herself getting stronger again just by Regina’s proximity, just the thought of the two of them resisting Gold together enough to give her renewed hope. “But he died so you could live. Don’t waste his gift for _this_. We talked about this.” 

 

“You talked. I made no promises.” Gold’s face distorts into another ugly sneer. “Zelena is mine to destroy. I’ve suffered enough at her hands.” 

 

“You took our mother so you could live. You took my life from me for a curse. You took _Emma’s_ for the same reason. And you twisted Zelena for your own purposes as well.” Now Emma can sense Regina’s magic building, can feel it reaching for her. “Haven’t you taken enough from us?” 

 

Zelena pulls herself into a crouch and then a stand, reaching to help Emma up. Emma takes her hand and makes a halfhearted attempt to stand on her own before she slumps against Zelena again. 

 

Gold snarls out a low curse and Regina shifts, walking past him to slide a supportive arm around Emma. “What’ll it be, Rumple?” she asks, and Emma can _feel_ the magic around them, stronger and stronger like it had never been exhausted.

 

She doesn’t know if it can ever be enough to counter the Dark One, but Gold’s eyes are dark and frustrated in concession and there’s a hard _crack_ of power as he vanishes from the house at last. Emma slumps again, and there are two gentle sets of arms that guide her back onto Zelena’s bed.

 

From the edge of her vision she can see Zelena glance to her once, meet her gaze with eyes warm enough that Emma’s lips curve into a light smile, and Regina murmurs to Zelena, “Are you all right?” 

 

Zelena nods and the sisters look at each other with such unspoken longing that Emma half expects them to hug. But they’re not quite there yet, and instead Zelena touches Regina’s arm and Regina dares a tentative smile as she clasps her own hand over Zelena’s on her arm. “Can you phone David at the station, let him know what happened here before an angry mob arrives?” 

 

“Phone?” Zelena echoes, but she looks at both of them again in comprehension, then takes the proffered cell phone and agrees, “I’ll do my best,” and exits the room.

 

And then Regina is Emma’s again, sliding up onto the bed so she can lie opposite her. “Thank you,” Regina whispers. “I know that couldn’t have been easy for you.”

 

“I’m the savior,” she says back, and it’s an answer and none at all. “I’m starting to figure out what that means.” 

 

“That’s up to you to decide.” Regina strokes her hair, pulls it back behind her ear so it isn’t tangled over her face anymore. “If it’s an empty title that’s outlived its purpose or if it’s who you’re going to be every day.” 

 

“I think…” For what meaning she’s found in it, she’ll keep it, and reject it for the falseness that it brings to Storybrooke around her. “I think I can be a sheriff.” Another non-answer that Regina seems to understand. Emma laughs hoarsely. “I used light magic again today, did you see? That’s how I protected Zelena.” 

 

“Light magic comes easily when you believe in it,” Regina murmurs. 

 

“But–“ She laughs again, confused and overwhelmed. “ _This_ is my big redemptive moment? Saving the villain of the story?” 

 

Regina watches her with eyes that glow with love, with so much wisdom within her gaze that’s been tempered by a life unlike any other. “Oh, Emma, my sweet idiot.” She kisses her gently on the lips, achingly slow. “There are no big defining moments to redeem us, that’s what I’ve learned. There’s only fighting, day after day, and sometimes the fights are loud. Sometimes they’re so quiet that no one knows.” 

 

“No one?” 

 

“Tell me.” Regina kisses her again and Emma draws her closer still. “Tell me, and I’ll tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an epilogue to come! :)


	17. Chapter 17

Mom is standing by the window, hands clasped behind her as she watches the New York traffic far below them. There are long-dead plants around her, brown leaves drooping at her feet, and Henry thinks that this is the only time that Ma had gotten plants during their years- false years- together. 

 

This had been the first place that they’d meant to stay long enough that plants had been an option, and now they’re dead and Mom stands in their place and it’s a fair trade, really. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

“Do you like it here?” he asks, peeking up at her again. 

 

Mom half-turns, a guarded smile on her face. “It’s beautiful. You had so much sunshine.” Her eyes are warm but her fingers are fidgeting where they’re locked together, anxious energy like she can’t wait to get out of this place. 

 

New York scares Mom in a way that Boston and all the rest stops they’d made along the way here haven’t. Henry knows what it is about this city- this apartment- that frightens her. He’s been wiggling the foot he has trapped under him with the same trepidation. “It’s been a long time since she went downstairs.” 

 

“Yes.” Mom gestures for him and he joins her at the window, squinting down at what she’d been watching before. 

 

There’s a tiny figure seated at a cafe across the street, elbows down on the table and head pressed into her palms. Mom’s arm goes around his back and he leans into it, watching Ma down below worriedly. “You don’t think she’s…she’s coming back with us, isn’t she?” 

 

It’s been quiet since Zelena’s ultimate defeat. Ma’s officially been living with Gram for the past couple of months, but she spends nearly all her time with them and she’d seemed happy, he’d thought. She’d started smiling with her eyes again, even around Zelena, and she looks at Mom like she’s awestruck that they’re _together_ all the time. It had seemed like a safe and opportune time to make the trip back to New York to pack up their stuff and make themselves a proper home at last, but maybe he’d overestimated Ma’s state of mind.

 

“Of course she’s coming back with us,” Mom says firmly, steering him away from the window. “She’d never, ever leave you, you know that.” 

 

“And I’m staying in Storybrooke,” he says with certainty. Mom lets out the tiniest exhale, like she’s been just as worried about him as she has Ma, and he lays his head down against her shoulder in silent confirmation. 

 

They have a home. This is just a part of his past now, less fuzzy than the rest but still not 108 Mifflin Street in a little town in Maine. He knows it. Ma knows it too. 

 

He sits back on the sofa and Mom tries to bring him closer to her, to have him curl against her like he’s still a little kid. It’s awkward and he’s too tall and they both laugh uncertainly at it, but he scoots in there anyway, nestles his head into the crook of her arm and closes his eyes. 

 

When he opens them, it’s getting dark outside and he’s stretched out on the couch. Ma and Mom are arguing back and forth over whether or not they’re keeping one of the wall hangings, their backs to him but each with an arm wrapped around the other’s waist.

 

+

 

The car is packed with dozens of silly little things they’d kept from the apartment- Ma had shrugged it all off in the end last night and said, _It doesn’t matter anymore,_ and suddenly it had mattered very much to Mom instead- and he falls asleep three hours into the ride with his head squashed against a stack of boxes and wakes up alone in the parking lot of a New Hampshire rest stop at noon.

 

He blinks and squints out of the car with bleary eyes, wondering if he’s been abandoned, but then he sees his moms perched on the hood of the car together, Ma leaning back on her palms and Mom sitting straight with her legs crossed and her head turned to Ma's. They’re kissing. What else is new. 

 

He rolls his eyes and leans back against the boxes, eyes closing again.

 

+

 

They’re six hours into the drive when they finally hit Maine, and now it’s Mom who’s asleep in the passenger's seat as Ma slouches over the wheel, eyes determined. “Shouldn’t be much longer now.” 

 

“Cool.” He perks up, sensing a chance. “Hey, this highway is really quiet. What if I took the wheel?” 

 

“What if I died a gruesome death when your mother figured out what we were doing?” Ma gives him the stinkeye in the rearview mirror. “You’re _twelve.”_

 

“And a half. That’s basically fifteen.” 

 

“You’re also basically an infant.” 

 

“We can drive side streets?” 

 

Ma maneuvers her hand behind her seat to swat at him and he dodges it. “I haven’t forgotten you trying to  _crash_ my Bug. I’m not letting you near the driver’s seat until Regina pays someone to teach you how to drive.” 

 

“Spoilsport.” But now he’s remembering that night when he was ten, seizing the wheel from Ma and twisting it before she can cross the town line. He looks up and into Ma’s eyes in the mirror, suddenly somber, and he knows she’s thinking of the same.

 

“I never thanked you,” she murmurs, and he blinks. 

 

“What?” 

 

“Twice. More than that, but twice you didn’t let me leave. Even without your memories.” Her eyes are worn and weary, too much still weighing on them, but beneath them she looks at him and he feels so…

 

_Loved._  “Last night, when I went down to collect the mail from the Newtons, I guess I got sidetracked, thinking about what being here had meant to me.” Ma glances over at Mom as though to make sure that she isn’t listening to her confessional. “That things were right and they were happy and so little around us mattered.” She laughs. “I think that was the biggest appeal of it. How nothing mattered but you. And when I thought about it, thought about what we had there and what we have now…” She looks away from the mirror, her voice sounding strained. “There’s no comparison, is there?” 

 

“Mom gave us good memories.” He stares thoughtfully out the window, watching the trees fly by. “She never gave us a happy ending. I don’t think we could have one without Storybrooke.” 

 

“We’d just be missing pieces of ourselves,” Ma agrees, and there’s a haunted quality to how she says it. Ma’s lived her whole life missing pieces of herself, longing for her parents and then eventually _him_. And now she looks so different than she had in Boston on the day they’d met again, fewer sharp angles and more gentleness in her eyes. “Thank you for bringing me home, Henry. Thank you for never letting me leave again.”

 

+

 

They cross the town line at a snail’s pace but Mom still jerks from her spot in the driver’s seat and slumps against the wheel for a moment, and Ma is suddenly quaking in her seat like she’d been struck by lightning. 

 

Mom sits back up but Ma’s still shaking, ragged breathless sobs tearing themselves from her throat, and Mom parks in the middle of the road and pulls Ma out of the car, holding her with light hands cupping Ma’s elbows. “Breathe,” she instructs her. “Let the magic flow through you. It’s yours, remember? You control it.” 

 

Ma slips into her arms instead and presses her forehead to Mom’s right temple. “I think I was just smacked in the chest with a sledgehammer.” 

 

“Oh. Yes, your heart.” Mom actually flushes, the faintest orange highlighting her cheekbones, and Henry prepares to find reason to zone out before they get embarrassing.

 

But instead, Ma takes a deep breath and the shaking slows and she says, “Yeah, my heart. Ever going to tell me what that’s about?” 

 

“What?” 

 

“You know. That _thing_ you pretend isn’t a thing. It’s been months.” Henry surreptitiously leans forward, closer to Ma’s open door and his mothers beyond it. “What happened to my heart on that day when…when you woke up?” Ma doesn’t talk about anything else from that day anymore, but no one else wants to, either, so that’s okay. Zelena dances around it and gets grouchy when it’s brought up and Robin Hood avoids their whole family now and Gram always looks like she wants to cry, and all in all, the town seems mostly relieved to act as though nothing from that whole week had ever happened.

 

“Oh. That.” Mom’s arm tightens around Ma’s waist and she speaks with reluctance. “You’d tried to burn your heart up alive. Which I’m told is impossible, but you were very powerful and very stubborn and _very stupid_ ,” she adds warningly. Ma smirks. “By the time I got to you, you were already halfway gone.”

 

“So how am I alive now? Did you–“ 

 

“No. Yes,” Mom corrects herself almost instantly. “It wasn’t just me, Emma.” 

 

Ma takes a step back from her, brow furrowing. “I don’t understand.” 

 

“You have…your heart was born of true love.” Mom drops her arm from Ma and fidgets with her fingers. “And there was never going to be a way to heal you without that.” 

 

Ma gapes at her. “ _We–_ “

 

“We rebuilt your heart from the mess you’d left it in.” Mom’s flush gets deeper. “Your magic and mine together saved you. I was able to siphon as much of your life force as I could to keep you alive, then I rushed you to the hospital. And your heart drew energy from us whenever we were together again.” She presses her lips together, visibly self-conscious. “I didn’t tell you because I thought it was…too much pressure, I suppose.” 

 

“Because we share true love,” Ma breathes. Her eyes are round and her mouth is still open in an “o” and Henry grins at her from behind his stack of boxes because _duh, Ma._

 

“We share magic, too. Your heart was remade from my…my love, my power, just as much as your own.” Mom still looks uncertain, taking Ma’s hand in her own and holding it tightly. “I know it’s a lot to take in.” 

 

“Yeah.” Henry had seen them like this a year ago, in the same pose in the same place in front of the town line. And their faces are different now, fewer tears even with this new revelation, but the same awe is shining in Ma’s eyes and the same love is in Mom’s and he’d thought that they’d fallen in love when he'd returned to Storybrooke with Ma but now he’s certain that he was wrong. They’d fallen in love at the town line a year ago, had reached an understanding and bidden each other goodbye a moment later, and he’s inexplicably mournful at the thought of it even now.

 

Ma closes her other hand around Mom’s grasp and tugs it closer to press their joined hands against her heart, and she says, “Let’s go home.”

 

+

 

Henry is the first up the walk to the house, balancing a box of his clothing and trying his best not to trip, when the door is thrown open and Gram comes rushing out in a tearful rush of emotion. “Henry! Emma! You’re back!” 

 

He gets a quick hug before she’s tearing toward Ma, throwing her arms around her, and Ma pats her back and says, “It was just two days, Snow. What’s so–“ She pauses, eyes narrowing. “Zelena did something.” 

 

But Zelena is in the doorway now, looking cranky at the accusation. “I was on my best behavior, thanks for asking, Emma.” She rounds on Mom. “And you left me with _those_ two? Do you know how hard it was to resist the urge to _arrange an accident_?” 

 

“I’ve been there,” Mom agrees solemnly, stepping to the side to sleekly avoid Gram’s attempt at a hug. “We had no choice.” 

 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Zelena mutters. She’s been getting more of her powers back lately and Mom had been worried about leaving her alone in town, but Gram had been adamant that she’d be fine with them and the house is still standing. So it’s probably okay. 

 

“Welcome back,” she says now, and there’s a ghost of a smile on her face when she meets Ma’s eyes. Ma rolls her eyes good-naturedly in response and Zelena turns to Mom, and there’s another brief smile sparkling in her eyes that’s returned with Mom's lips curving upward. 

 

Henry gets the full-sized grin and he ducks in for a hug with her, glad that she hasn’t killed anyone during their trip. He sets down his box in the foyer just as Ma says, “Did you think I wasn’t coming back?” 

 

He glances back and Ma is back in Gram’s arms- no, Ma is hugging Gram, arms flung around her and eyes shut tight as she holds on. Gram strokes her hair and murmurs into her ear and Henry doesn’t know what Ma says in response, but he makes out the way her lips form the word  _Mom_ and now Gram’s the one with eyes squeezed shut in her arms.

 

+

 

He talks on the phone to Adi and Ava about plans for tomorrow morning and Mom gives him a curious look while Ma says in a stage whisper, “So which one is he dating?” and then he flushes and says crankily, “I’m _twelve_ ,” which isn’t really an answer at all. 

 

But Ma is so obnoxiously happy and Gram has already packed up the last of her things from the loft and sent them over and they both drop the topic in favor of the lightness that suffuses the household tonight. Ma makes dinner and Zelena makes snide comments about it but refuses to surrender her plate when Ma tries to grab it from her. They all sit on the couch after dinner and watch America’s Funniest Home Videos and Henry and Zelena pretend not to notice when Mom and Ma sneak out of the room and upstairs.

 

They do turn up the volume, though, and they loudly complain their way through that dumb fantasy show that plays afterwards with mutual silent agreement to never acknowledge what’s probably happening upstairs. This is how it’ll be from now on, he guesses. The healing period is over and they’re all finally home again.

 

+

 

The next weekend, Mom and Ma are set up in the yard playing- they call it _practicing magic_ or _working_ , but Mom came inside once with purple hair and Ma once spent the evening after as an overly exuberant chihuahua so he doesn’t buy it- and Henry sits at the patio table, doing his homework with Mom as she barks out warnings at Ma in tandem. 

 

He forgets to make himself scarce when Ma and Mom start to argue, gritted teeth and animated disagreement and Ma stalking in closer to Mom. When he looks up next, they’re kissing, parting with laughter and smiles and love, and Ma stumbles as she steps back and seizes Mom’s hand instinctively and they crash down into the grass together.

 

Flowers sprout up where they land, blues and purples growing more numerous for as long as they remain on the ground, and Ma lies back and Mom rolls over and they’re both lying beside each other in a garden that seems to surprise neither of them.

 

Some of the flowers are so dark they’re nearly black and some are so light they’re nearly white, but almost all of them are somewhere in between. Henry doesn’t understand it but it’s magic, same as everything else his family seems to be when they’re all together. 

 

Mom plucks a purple-blue flower and presses it briefly to her lips before she tucks it into Ma’s hair, and Ma smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it. Much thanks to those of you who've stuck with me throughout- I know this wasn't an easy ride, and I appreciate all the encouragement you've given me that kept me going, whether in comments or kudos or favorites or even hits. :)
> 
> And if you are so inclined, I'd love to hear what you thought of this!
> 
> Until next time~


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